


Stardust dancing

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Dancing, Exchange students, F/M, Fluff, Humour, I know I promised sexy times but so far these dorks have only just managed to kiss!, I know this was meant to be a oneshot but it got away from me, Jyn Erso POV, Jyn is not good at feelings, Modern dress AU, Pining, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa 2017, Romance, Slow Burn, Spanish setting - fictional university town, Very Very Slow Burn, and both shy and rather bolshy, and inclined to assume no-one likes her, and is very withdrawn, and it's really really cold, introverts take the longest time to feel safe flirting, okay in chapter 7 finally they got past kissing, other characters may arrive as the story progresses, student life, the dancing starts in chapter 2, the pains and pleasures of being a foreign exchange student
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-02-23 01:30:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Jyn Erso arrives at Llavin University on the first of February to spend four months researching Andalusian art and architecture of the post-Islamic period.  The experience isn't quite what she expected.The cute guy on her Orientation Tour is a plus, though.  Or he might be, if she can overcome her complete lack of social skills...





	1. Con una ilusión/ En el corazón

**Author's Note:**

> For tumblr user watson-emma as a Secret Santa gift!

Fuck, it’s cold.

She wriggles back under the bedcovers, wrapping her arms round herself and curling up for warmth.  Her first morning in Spain; Llavin, Andalucía, the Instituto de Bellas Artes, the country’s smallest and famously prettiest University town; what a wonderful opportunity for you, Jyn, how exciting! 

And it’s freezing.

She has slept, but only fitfully; the wide bed still feels faintly chilly even now, despite her body heat going into it all night.  The first faint daylight is filtering through the blinds.  She closes her eyes again and burrows her head down till only her nose is showing above the tangle of sheets and blankets; tugs the narrow pillow into the gaps at her shoulders, trying to seal any heat she can generate inside with her under the covers.

_Orientation tour this morning.  Oh God, what have I done?  I must have been out of my mind to come here._

_What time is it?  Do I have to get out of bed, stand up in this cold, cold room again?  The alarm hasn’t gone off yet, is it going to go off soon?  I don’t want to stick an arm out of this barely-warm-enough cocoon of mine to pick up the clock and check._

_What have I done?_

_Why did it never occur to me that southern Spain in February might be cold?  I am such a fucking idiot. What kind of illusions was I labouring under, to think I’d be good at this and it would be fun and the fucking sun would be hot even in winter?_

_I don’t want today to begin.  I don’t want to face where I am and what I’ve done with my life.  Not yet.  Please just let me sleep again; sleep properly, just for a few hours.  Please let me get warm…_

It nags at her that she can’t tell the hour, and she gives up and reaches out, stretching her arm into the cold air; picks up the alarm clock and sees that it’s just shy of 6.30am.  More than an hour before she needs to get up.  Pulling her hand back she bumps the end of her nose and finds it icy cold.  It feels like the last humiliation on the part of luck and fate.  Bad luck, mean fate, getting back at her for her illusions.  _Why did I ever come here?_

_Please, let me get a scrap more sleep.  Please.  I’m so cold.  I’m so tired._

_So tired…_

(sitting on the flight to Madrid, slowly feeling her excitement sink away and realising it had been an artificial push to get her through, and underlying it is sheer terror, because she’s walked away from her entire world for four whole months. Turbulence over the Bay of Biscay and again over the mountains.  Then descending through clouds to land in an evening as dismal as any London can offer.  Hauling her heavy, clattering suitcase, from airport arrivals to transfer bus to metro station to Atocha Terminus, to crowded late night concourse packed with people who know where they’re going and what they’re doing.  Standing staring at the departure board, trying to find the platform for the midnight train south.  Jaén, Granada, Llavin, Almería.  The platform, the train, at last the coach number on her ticket and the compartment number and the doors slides shut and her arms feel as though she’s been hauling this goddammed case since last year; and she’s so alone, so cold and so alone)

She tosses in the cold bed and tucks her hands into her armpits.

_I have got to get some winter pyjamas.  And some extra bedding.  And a hot water bottle._

Rolls over and huddles in on herself, drifting back towards the margins of sleep.

(the banquette on the train, smelling of cigarettes and dry cleaning chemicals; the other passengers, a resentful middle-aged woman, an old gentleman eating chorizo slices out of a paper bag, a shy German man with his right arm in a plaster cast; and for a moment she had managed to find some extra strength in her aching arms, to help him with his luggage.  Her stomach rumbling, the airline meal a long time ago already, the savoury smell of the old man’s chorizo both appetising and horrible.  The thin bleak voice of the guard’s whistle as the coach jolted and the train began to move)

Huddling under that thin railway-issue blanket, as she was now huddling under these.

(thundering south, through Aranjuez, across the plains of La Mancha…)

(and it should have been so exciting, so glamourous, a night train across a magical unknown land where out in the darkness cities of legend and history, castles and rivers and battle sites and famous vineyards were passing by under the stars, she should have been so excited but -)

_I’m freezing cold and exhausted and freaked out because I’ve worked so hard since I was 16 to get here and build my own life and now I’ve jumped off into the unknown with no safety net_

_I must be mad_

_And I’m so cold and I can’t sleep._

Jyn curls around her own shivering, and the faint pulse of panic deep inside her; slips into a hesitant approximation of sleep, dozing as she’d done on the train

(listening to the railway tracks sing in the frost in their deafening voices,  I am not crazy I am not crazy I am not crazy I am not crazy)

And dawn.  She’d climbed down from the coach, dragged her bag after her, and stood stiff and aching on the platform of a weirdly small station, high in the mountains.  Llavin.  The distance blue and icy, the peak of Mulhacén to the north dazzling, a mini-Everest of pure snow-white.  She’d stood blinking and yawning and alone, and known the voice of the rails was right; she was crazy.

She still had to make a go of it, somehow.

A taxi, a fistful of Euros, a big, bright building, baroque pilasters everywhere, it looks like a palace, is actually a repurposed 18th century hospital, is now the registry of Llavin University.  Meetings, offices, faces, voices indifferent or kindly, some speaking rapid-fire while others talk slowly and courteously to the fumbling foreigner.  The college office to register her arrival and enrol for her classes, the language department to sign-up for an Intensive Intermediate Spanish course, the office of overseas students to register with them and pick up information about orientation activities and their social programme, finally the accommodation office.  Jyn dizzy with tiredness by then and painfully aware of not having had a chance to wash properly since she set off for Gatwick airport the previous day.  Breakfast in the station café, lunch in the tiny canteen of the Fine Arts Institute, then trailing down to the road and hauling her ass and her fucking rock-filled case onto yet another bus, to get to the address they’ve given her.  A piece of paper clutched in her cold hand.  A vacant room in a shared student flat; the landlady meeting her at the door, babbling in a Spanish so fast and heavily accented it might as well be a completely unknown language.  Four other women sitting in a row in the dining room, all for some reason with their legs and most of their bodies under the tablecloth; four names, four faces, four accents; a key, a contract she signed and handed back, by then so exhausted she could have signed away her soul and not have noticed the ink was her own blood.  And the room was hers; she could shut her own door again, at last.

Shut her own door and flop onto the bed, tired, cold and hungry, but too flattened by effort and confusion and a mounting sense of horror because _What have I done? What have I done?_ was ringing endlessly in her brain like an unmusical echo; and she hadn’t even tried to go out and look for a meal; had undressed, pulled on her nightie and crept into the bed.  And barely slept.

The alarm clock ticks slow and steady, counting down the minutes till 7.40am.

_What have I done?  I could have got a perfectly good degree without putting myself down for this.  I’ve got to try and produce a thesis and supporting visual material on Mudejar art and architecture.  I could have picked something safe and simple. Titian – lots of Titians in the National gallery - why didn’t I pick Titian?  Or David Hockney, always fashionable.  Gothic architecture as exemplified in Salisbury Cathedral.  Something easy that I could research with an hour on a train._

_But no, I had to grab at the chance to do something I’ve never done before.  And here I am.  Freezing my tits off in the Sierra Nevada.  I am crazy._

**

The information sheet about the orientation tour had said very insistently that all attendees must meet in the Plaza Santa Ana at 10am sharp.  “Tiempo Norte Europeana”, seemingly a droll local way of saying “on the dot”.  Jyn arrives at five to ten, to be on the safe side. 

The flat is in Calle Fénix, Phoenix Street, in a nineteenth century area on the southern edge of the Old Quarter and the maze of streets running uphill to the Cathedral and the walls of the Alaczabita.  Even with a map, getting to the central Plaza Santa Ana from there involves working her way through a network of alleys and stepped streets, tiny plazetas and winding lanes.  It would probably be marvellously picturesque, if she felt less confused.  At least she’s had a cup of herb tea and a slice of toast, thanks to the first of her new flatmates to speak to her.

(“I’m Hera Syndulakis, hi, are you okay?  You went to bed straightaway last night and I was worried you were sick.” – “Oh thank God, you speak English.” – “Yeah, hi.  Margarina will tell you everyone has to speak Spanish the entire time in this apartment but ignore her, she’s weird and she thinks she’s in charge of us all.  She isn’t really called Margarina, it’s Marguerite but we call her Margarita to her face because _only Spanish in this apartment_ and then that slipped into Margarina behind her back.  I’ve got some _tsai tou vounou_ if you wanted tea, I guess you didn’t have a chance to do any shopping yet?” – “I have no idea what that is but if it’s tea then yes please and thank you very, very much.  I’m Jyn Erso, by the way.”)

She has to do some shopping; she has a shelf in the refrigerator and a cupboard beside the stove, both currently empty. 

Orientation day first.  A walking tour.  Ten o’clock sharp, wear something bright red so we can recognise you. 

Only there’s no-one here.

Plaza Santa Ana at the foot of the Alcazabita Hill is wide and sunlit, and rimed with frost.  In every corner of shadow the ground is white, and even in the sun it’s ringing-hard and sheened with ice.  There’s an inviting café on the far side, past the church ( _I must explore that church, that bell-tower looks like a minaret conversion_ ) and a line of stone pines casting discs of shade on the frozen cobbles.  Pigeons scrabbling for food beside a fountain that is somehow still running despite the icy temperature.  Above the upper bowl of the fountain, a bronze man and a lion stand apparently cuddling one another theatrically. 

Wear something red.  The fountain with Hercules at 10 o’clock exactly.   _North European time._

There are pigeons and sparrows, and a man begging in the door of the church.  There are two people who must be tourists, cameras hung round their necks, following a map carefully; as she watches they turn into one of the stepped streets and head uphill towards the famous fortified summer palace of the Alcazabita.

There’s no-one else wearing red.  The bobble-hat she’s had to borrow from Hera Syndulakis feels unnatural.  Jyn never wears bright colours, never draws attention to herself if she can possibly avoid it.  Hera was wearing green dungarees and rainbow-striped socks this morning, of course she has a vermillion-red woolly hat with a pompom, it’s probably quite low-key to her.  Hera is from Crete, and she’s forthcoming and kindly and utterly self-possessed; evidently not someone who would mind being conspicuous in the middle of an empty square on a bitterly cold sunny morning.

Five past now.  She wants to give up, but she mustn’t.  It would be so easy to say _Fuck this_ and go back to the flat.  Or _Fuck this_ and go to the Tourist Office; buy a map, set off to try and sort things out on her own, and never mind this whole Social Programme aspect of meeting other exchange students and starting to find her feet.  Or even, _Fuck this_ , and head for that café.  Café Churrería Futbol; it has a glazed-in terrace, it looks cosy and there are comfortable chairs and potted plants.  She could have _chocolate con churros_.  Or a nice big mug of _café solo_.  Or both.  Steaming hot food and strong coffee.

Yeah.  Fuck the orientation tour.

Jyn starts walking. 

She glances back guiltily as she nears the door of the café.  But why make herself miserable waiting here for anyone else who might bother to –

Oh.

A figure in a red scarf.  On the far side of the Plaza, emerging from the same steep street the tourists had charged up ten minutes ago.  He hesitates, looking around, and seems to shrink into himself slightly as he sees no-one else by the fountain.  A young man, dark hair, a scruffy beard; he’s taller than her and skinny, dressed in jeans and a padded blue coat with fur at the collar, and a summery scarlet bandana that looks utterly incongruous against all his warm winter gear.  He walks slowly to the Hercules fountain and stands there looking around him sadly.

Jyn turns back from the café with a confused sigh of relief and irritation mixed.  No hot chocolate, then; but maybe this guy will be an ok person, maybe he won’t be over-talkative, maybe he’ll even be friendly in a manageable way, like Hera.  At least now she isn’t the only one waiting.  Stupid orientation tour.

The young man brightens visibly as she approaches; and his downcast mouth lifts in an uncertain, boyish smile.  She cannot help observing that he’s extremely handsome.

Shit.  _Really_ , **_extremely_** handsome.

Jyn is not a frequent  smiler as a rule; least of all spontaneously and at strangers.  The up-curve of her lips now feels odd to muscles that have been pursed in tension for most of the last 48 hours.  But – but – no, this smile refuses to leave her face, as she walks towards the newcomer by the fountain.  She would have expected to defend herself with a glare in the face of someone so impossibly, unattainably attractive, but all she can do is smile.  Like an idiot.. 

She stamps forward over the last few metres of cobbles, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched.

The handsome man meets her; hands also in pockets, shoulders also slightly hunched.  He looks unsure, and cold, and hopeful.

“¿Hola?” he says cautiously.

“Er, hola…”

Oh, there’s that smile again; small, uncertain, sincere and sweet and guarded and oh shit, oh _shit_ , oh by gum, he is _gorgeous_. 

Come on, Erso, make an effort, don’t just clam up.

“Er – ¿aquí para - orientación?”  She isn’t even sure if _orientación_ is a real word, or if it is, if it’s the right one; it might be a false friend, like the dreaded _embarazada_ …

“Sí.  Ah - ¿habla usted inglés?”

“Yes, yes I do.  Oh, what a relief!  However did you guess?” A clumsy laugh at herself, because her appalling accent is obviously a give-away; and she takes the implied offer to drop out of Spanish.  “How long have you been here?

“Almost a week.  I still haven’t got used to the way no-one keeps to the time, either.  How can it be so difficult to mean 10am when you say it?”

He has an accent, and it’s certainly Latin but it isn’t quite the local one.  She’s still trying to place it when he goes on “And everyone just assumes its normal for me because Universal Hispanic Culture or something – but, you know, in Mexico, if we say _No, really, I mean it, be on time, it’s important_ , then we **do** mean it.”  That smile again; wide and shy at the same time.  Creases form for a second at the corners of his eyes.  Big brown eyes, a very warm brown.

_Don’t stare, Erso.  Stop creaming your pants for a moment and talk, like an adult human being._

He’s from Mexico.  Not a local but not an English-speaker either.  “Ah – er - ¿a usted le –“ ugh, she can’t remember the conditional of preferir – “Esta mejor por – para – usted hablar Español?”

If only she knew how to flirt.  How to chat, even.  Her rusty Spanish is instantly worse now she’s trying to talk to an attractive man.  Of course it is.  _Por or para?  Ugh!_

He chuckles for a second at her expression.  “¡Claro que sí! – pero – uh – well, I don’t mind practising my English, it’s important for my course work to speak it fluently – so if you would prefer it?”

“Well, yeah.  If you’re sure. My Spanish is rubbish.”  And his English is an order of magnitude better.  Jyn pushes on through the combined mortification of her general self-disgust and that stupid goofy returning smile.  “So, what are you studying?”

“Doctorate in Theatre Studies.  The use of Shakespearean tragic familial themes in Lorca.  What about you?”

“Art History.  MA.  I’m working on a dissertation on Andalusian art and architecture of the post-Islamic period.”

“Wow,” he says, and it sounds completely sincere.  “Oh, you’re gonna find so many amazing things to write about here.”

“Yeah, that was the idea.”

And then neither of them seem to be able to think of what to say next, and they grin at one another and fidget their feet, and stare round the square quickly.

“No-one else here yet,” Jyn remarks redundantly. 

Mr Gorgeous-of-Mexico shrugs and smiles at her again.  He pulls a large bare hand out of his coat pocket.  “I’m Cassian, by the way.  Cassian Andor.”

“Jyn Erso.”  She takes his hand and feels a blissful shiver run through her at the touch; he’s so warm, it feels like heaven to be held for a moment. 

He leans in, and she realises just in time what is happening, and tips her head up shyly to accept the quick customary kiss on each cheek as he says “Encantado.”

“Yes, uh, same, same…”

_I did not come here to make friends I did not come here to goof over a man I must be crazy I must be crazy – but –_

_-he’s so lovely.  Look at that little smile.  Feel that warm, warm hand holding yours._

_Stop it Erso, just stop it!_

He lets go and his smile falls uncertainly as she pulls back.  Cassian Andor, encantado; the handsome face goes impassive and it’s as though he’s stepping back and giving her space without moving a muscle.  He lowers his eyes from hers and sweeps them quickly round the Plaza again.  “Okay, so, the chances are that no-one will come for at least an hour.  I guess I was too optimistic.”

_Stop making a fool of yourself and be friendly.  Just friendly.  Come on!_

“I – I was about to go and get a coffee when you turned up.  If – if –“ _oh god can I do it?_ – “I thought if I sat there I could watch the square and see anyone who arrived –“ _no, no, bad side-track, come on, Erso_ – “I, uh - if you’d like maybe we still could.  Coffee I mean.  It wouldn’t be so cold in the café.”

Well that was the absolute worst.  Is it even possible to disinter the meaning from that tangle of confusion?  Why, why can’t she just say _Would you like to get a coffee?_ like anyone else.

Cassian plucks at the red bandana as if it fidgets him, and smiles slowly again.  “I – uh – yes, it wouldn’t be so cold inside.  Would you? – if you’d like? - yeah, coffee?”

“Yeah.  Coffee.”

Well, how weird is this.  They’re trusting one another and managing to understand one another and suddenly the possibilities are all there, of coffee and chocolate and churros and getting out of the cold, and maybe, just maybe, getting to know someone who’s both friendly, and as introverted as she is herself.

The café is as warm as she’d hoped, and the chocolate as rich, the churros as fresh.  Hot coffee and sugary food fills her with energy and the world is no longer icy dust and ashes but rich with possibility.  Cassian Andor talks about Shakespeare and the universal themes of tragedy, and she holds her own and thanks the Force for having kept her head down and slogged through all those pointless years of English Lit at school.

Then she talks about Mudéjar art, about mocárabes and artesonado woodwork ceilings and azulejos and alicatado mosaics, and he recognises the words and doesn’t get awkward about her enthusiasm or her specialist knowledge.  And his shy smile comes gradually more often, and more confidently, and her own grows ever more happy and foolish.

It’s like something out of a rom-com and her heart doesn’t know whether to dance or run into hiding at the feeling.  She swallows the giddiness and shock and presses on with this conversation.  It _can’t_ be this good; but it is, they’re just - hitting it off.  It’s – it’s –

It’s good.

When other students start to drift into the square, wearing their red socks or headscarves or wraps or shoes, it’s hard not to suggest staying inside and having another coffee instead of going out to join them.  But while Jyn’s debating the question with herself, Cassian has got up and pulled on his parka again.  He grins down at her.  “I can see one of the professors; I think they’re almost ready to go.  Coming?”

It _is_ an opportunity to get a free guided tour, after all.  She smiles and nods and picks up her coat and her bag.  Sticks close by him for the whole hour; and although they don’t speak much more, both listening attentively to their guide, there’s something reassuring about having him nearby. 

She’s still going to need to get a decent map, though; the Old Quarter is a maze, and though the modern parts of town are built on a grid system, none of the grids match up; one is north/south, another north-east by south-west, another is all diagonals onto a spine, an angled road plan like the ribs of a fish.  All this radiating out from the tangle of lanes around the Alcazabita and the cathedral.

And then suddenly the tour is over, and they’re all winding their way back down the hill towards the square and old Hercules and his pet lion again.  Jyn’s warmed up inside from walking and she’s managed to make small-talk with two other students.  She needs to find a supermarket or a bakery and a greengrocer, and a department store where she can buy a hot water bottle and some warm pyjamas; and she needs to get Cassian’s number, or his email, or both, and then head home for lunch, and finish unpacking, and try to solve the mystery of having no fucking heating in her room, and try to have a proper conversation with more than one of her other flatmates.  The day is only half done and maybe things aren’t going to be so bad, maybe she isn’t crazy, this has all gone okay so far…

_I can do it, I can ask him for his number, it’s not just me who enjoyed our conversation, he’s stuck right beside me all morning; I can do this, I’m not crazy –_

But as they come into the Plaza Santa Ana, Cassian spots a figure on the far side of the square and moves away.  Just like that. 

A tall woman with neatly-bobbed chestnut hair. 

She was waiting for him.  Right by the café.  Their café; only clearly it’s not. 

Oh.

He’s already out of earshot before Jyn can master her shock enough to call after him. 

He’s talking to the newcomer, smiling at her.  She’s as tall as him, a little older perhaps, and elegant, almost regal, dressed in a long sweeping wool coat and a draped scarf gleaming with gold thread. 

_But I was going to get his number, I thought we had – I thought we had clicked, I thought –_

Cassian looks back quickly and waves at her; seems to hesitate for a moment and then turns, and follows the tall woman out of the square.

She still has a list of things she needs to do ( _the map, the groceries, the unpacking, Jyn you have **everything** to think about…)._   She still has her studies.  Llavin is still full of beautiful buildings, full of history, art, architecture; she’s still going to make a go of this.  But realising the young man whose company had turned her day around has in fact been waiting to get away from her, just hanging about till he could rejoin his oh-so-cool female companion; it has flattened her spirit like a boot treading her into the ground.  Into the cobblestones, into the frost.

She makes her way home, alone.

**

She wants to get on with all of her flatmates, notwithstanding Hera’s cryptic warning about everyone calling the French woman Marguerite “Margarina”.  It’s Margarina – margarine girl – who’s in the kitchen when Jyn gets in, hung around with carrier bags from her trip to the market and the Supermercado Estrella in Plaza Llanta.  Jyn says “Hola” cautiously and is stared at.

Margarina has a wide soft mouth like Mick Jagger, and steely blue eyes beneath emphatically-plucked brows.  She’s eating a large bowl of green salad, trying not to get lipstick on the fork.  She pouts and says “Hola” back after a moment. 

There doesn’t seem to be any further conversation forthcoming, so Jyn unpacks her groceries in silence.  She’s never had a problem with silence, it’s other people who read every imaginable undercurrent into it. 

Margarina sits staring at her, waiting to be spoken to.

Jyn lists her purchases mentally as she takes each thing out of the bags and fills her small cupboard and her shelf in the fridge.  Manzanas, mantequilla - _I wish my Spanish were better, then I wouldn’t have to worry whether there’s really going to be a problem if I say **apples** and **butter** in front of this lass_… queso, ajo – _ugh, what are chick peas called again?_ \- garbanzos - _Cassian Andor doesn’t have to do this, he knows all this stuff already_ …  huevos, mermelada de melocotón, aceite de olivas, arroz blanco, atún, tomates - _Cassian Andor isn’t scratching his head trying to remember how to say **canned haricot beans** \- __judías en lata, is that it? - I must stop thinking about him, he met up with his girlfriend and went off to get on with whatever, he’s nothing to do with me -_ pepino, naranjas, pan…

The paper bag of tomatoes rolls off the table; it splits and one of the tomatoes bursts, a red splatter on the tiled floor.  “Shit.”

“¡Español, Heen!”

**_Heen?_ ** _Good grief, what? - did she just Hispanify my name?_

“What did you just say?”

“Solo Español en este piso, Heen.”

“ _So_ sorry,” Jyn says sarcastically.  _Heen._   _She’s calling me Heen.  Good God._

“¡En Español!”  Margarina – it’s never going to be possible to think of her as Marguerite now – is actually wagging a finger at her.  “!Solo Español en nuestro piso!”

“Well I beg your pardon, I’m sure.  On second thoughts, no I don’t.  This is stupid.“

Margarine Girl picks up her bowl of lettuce and walks out of the room with a sniff. 

So much for getting on well with everyone; so much for trying to change.  She met a gorgeous man and he got away as fast as he could; she met her second flatmate and promptly had a row with her. 

“Oh balls, balls, **balls** ,” Jyn says to the burst tomato on the floor.  “Big hairy balls to all this!”

She’s no good at this.  But she’s going to make a go of it.  Somehow.


	2. Vamos a bailar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn is beginning to make friends, much to her surprise; and agreeing to try out a Latin dance class brings an unexpected meeting...

“You’ve been moping,” says Hera.

She isn’t moping.  She’s been working hard.  The language classes, the history lectures, days spent drawing architectural details, evenings reading about brickwork patterns and the structural engineering of the horseshoe arch.  Working, not moping.  She’s solved the there-are-no-heaters problem (it turns out there are, under the tables, and she’s pretty sure they’re dangerous but they’re all she’s got).  She’s pushed herself through the process of chatting with each of her flatmates in turn (tiny, lovely, super-confident Leia from the US, lively super-blunt Sabine with the blue hair from Darmstadt, Hera herself, and the pouting and hectoring Marguerite, who considers anywhere that isn’t Paris to be beneath her and has apparently got three simultaneous boyfriends).  She’s got a cupboard full of food, a new pair of pyjamas, a sketchbook already half filled with studies.  She’s attending her language course, and her lectures, and making notes.  Her little Spanish-English dictionary never leaves her pocket.  She’s been doing well.  Not moping.

“I have not.”  (She has not, truly she has not.  Not moping.  Not really).

“I’m sorry, is it the wrong word?  My English isn’t good, I know.  But - miserable and sitting alone in your room being depressed about something - I thought that was called moping.”

“Ouch, way to call a girl out, Hera.  Yeah, that’s the word, and nope, still not going to admit I’m doing it.” Jyn grins with her jaw tight and hard.  Not going to give an inch.  No-one gets to tell her she’s moping, not even the person she’s closest to perhaps making friends with.

She didn’t come here to make friends.

Hera is older than the rest of them, a mature student in her early thirties and something of a mother hen to their little household of disparate arty types.  She paints.  Beautifully.  Jyn is embarrassed to show the Greek woman her sketchbooks, though she’s always worked hard on her drawings they look stilted and deliberate in comparison with Hera’s beautiful, lyrical work.

All of them in the apartment are attending the Instituto de Bellas Artes.  Two artists (Hera and Sabine) and three history of art students.  She doesn’t know anyone doing Theatre Studies.

Hera tries again. “I’m sorry if I was intruding.  It’s not my business if you aren’t happy.”

They’re sitting in the kitchen, eating toast and drinking Hera’s peculiar Greek herbal tea, and it’s almost time to go to bed.  Jyn has a pan of water heating on the stove, to fill her new hot water bottle.  It’s Friday night, and she’s been in Llavin two weeks.

“I’m not unhappy.”

“But not happy either.  No?”

“Please, Hera.  Don’t try to fix me.  I’m not a nice cuddly person and I’m just – I am what I am.”

“I’ll leave you alone.”

The water in the saucepan is starting to boil and Jyn gets the hot water bottle and fills it.  Stands holding its comforting warmth to her bosom, looking on as her companion clears their two plates and mugs into the sink.  She’s happy to have tea and toast with Hera, it feels more like having a friend than she can remember in years.  She isn’t unhappy, she isn’t moping.  Not really moping.  But she isn’t happy either.  She’s homesick and – and –

“I’m being stupid.  I met this bloke.”

“You met a guy?  In the language course or at the Instituto?”

“Neither.  Another exchange student, at the Orientation day, right after I first got here.  But he’s in Theatre Studies at the University and I haven’t seen him since.  He was sweet and interesting and cute.  Like I said, I’m being stupid.  It was nothing.”

And that’s the only time (really, truly it is) that she will let herself think about him.

She turns to go, and the other two are just coming in, unwrapping scarves and unzipping coats.  They’re carrying frosty air with them and Jyn pulls the hot water bottle close with a shiver.

“Brr, brr, fuck,” says the tiny American girl in the white padded jacket.  Leia; she’s like a beautiful china doll, with her immaculate hair and clothes, until she opens her mouth and swears like a marine.  Blue-haired Sabine laughs, pulling off her sheepskin gloves.

“I’ll make tea.  Poleomenta for you, Leia?  Ladies, anything for you?”

“I’m good,” says Hera.  “Jyn was just going to bed.”

She’s not sure what prompts her to say “Not immediately.  We were just chatting.  Where have you two been?”  _Making small-talk willingly, good grief, whatever’s happening to me?_

“Dance classes,” explains Sabine.  “Latin dance.  It’s great, the music is a wonderful focus and they keep the lighting plain so it isn’t sensory overload like a disco.  And the teacher’s American so no language problems.”

“The teacher is a 24-carat A-hole,” says Leia. “Cute, but an A-hole.”

“He likes you.”

“Yeah, and I’m not interested.  I like _nice_ men.”

“You guys should come too.  Han’s off for a half-term break now, classes start again next week.  Saturdays and Wednesdays.  Come with us!”  Sabine is determined.  One-track might be a better term.

“Could we join you?  It sounds like fun – Jyn, what do you think?”  Hera sounds pleased to be asked, but Jyn’s immediate instinct is the opposite and she backtracks, wincing at the panicked note in her voice.

“Oh no, no, I’m not a – not a joiner.”

Leia looks her up and down, coolly.  “No, you’re not, are you?  It’s odd though ‘cos I don’t get a stuck-up vibe off you like I do off Margarina.  You’re just – quiet.”

“Yeah.  I am quiet.  I’m –“ and for a fraction of a second her heart constricts at the thought of saying anything so personal to these people she barely knows; but their three faces are kind and friendly and hell, she isn’t giving anything major away, they’ll guess soon enough.  “I’m just like that.  I always feel – kind of detached, somehow.”

“Detached,” says Leia.  “Okay, but - well, you’re not exactly working hard _not_ to be.”

“Yeah, I know.  I’m sorry.  I’m not trying to be unfriendly.  I’m just – I am how I am.  It’s nothing against any of you.”

They’re all looking at her; and they’re all so un-pushy, so accepting.  People aren’t normally so respectful of her nature.  Is it really possible she could open up and say the things she doesn’t say, here?  In three and a half months she’ll go back home and resume her life, and need never see any of them again.  _Speak, tell; you can always leave it all behind later.  Experiment._

“You’re all so friendly,” she says.  “Well, all bar margarine-girl, anyway.  What _is_ her problem?  But – with me, it’s just – it’s normal, being like this.  I’m just not good at it.  Connecting.  Belonging.”

“Are you on the spectrum?” asks Sabine.  “I am, maybe you are.  It sure sounds like it.  But I like dancing.  So maybe you will too.  You don’t need to talk to anyone but your partner.  It’s like a body-meditation to music.  I bet you’re on the spectrum!”

“The what?” She realises next moment and “oh, no, I don’t think so.  I mean, I don’t know.  I think it’s a childhood thing.  All my family died when I was very young.  No-one’s ever stuck around.  So - self-sufficiency.  I don’t open up.  It’s a – a learned thing.”

“Come to the salsa class.  Give it a try.” Sabine moves towards the stove, grabs the grill-pan.  “I’m making toast.  Leia?”

“Yes please.  So –“ to Jyn –“ do you feel disconnected all the time?”

“Yeah.  Just – not part of things.  Not a joiner, like I said.  I’m okay with it, please don’t worry about me!  It’s who I am, is all.  I keep myself to myself.  Like they always say of serial killers.  I’m better if I stay on my own.”  Even as she tells them, she’s starting to wonder if maybe, this time, perhaps it would be worth risking a different move, a step outside her pattern…  Whatever has gotten into her?  She _never_ does this.

Hera asks gently “What would you have done if this guy you met had hung about?”

“Ah.  To be honest, I don’t know.”

“Guy?  What guy?  Ooh, tell all!”

“Leia, hush.”

“I’m trying not to think about it.  About him.  He was nice, but – these things don’t tend to work out for me, so – trying not to think about it.  I might have freaked out if he’d stuck around, if he’d showed an interest.  But I did like him.  I really thought we’d clicked and I don’t think that often.”  She takes a deep breath.  The hell with it.  “Like with you lot, like this,” she says.  They blink. “I never do this normally!” Jyn says; and Hera smiles encouragingly, while Sabine’s eyebrows bounce and then knot in a rueful moue of recognition. 

“Wait, you mean _this_ is click?” Leia’s face is a study.

“This is as much of a click as I get.  I’m telling you stuff about me, about how my brain works, even.  I’m serious, I never do this!  I’m actually thinking about coming dancing with you.  It’s very strange.  Quite uncanny to be trying to open the doors and windows in me.  I’m not used to it.  But it sounds – the dancing sounds – okay, I guess.  I might come.”

Hera and Leia both smile; encouraging and baffled at once.  Sabine has turned back to the stove and is briskly turning slices of bread on the grill, then lining up mugs with peppermint tea bags while another pan of water comes to the boil.  She looks up again with a grin and says “Yay, bravo!”

_And now I’m committed to Latin dance classes next week._

_Experiment.  You aren’t here to hide.  Open the windows, Erso._

Slowly, slowly, Jyn begins to smile.

**

She’s still here, and it’s almost three weeks now.

There are days when she doesn’t wake up shaking with homesickness, for her tiny shabby studio flat and the grey skyline of Bromley outside the Velux windows.

There are days when she succeeds in speaking an adequate and grammatical enough Spanish to get a smile from the greengrocer in the market; she buys the things she wants, cooks a decent meal, knows herself capable and competent and learning fast.  There are days when she remembers to speak Spanish in front of Margarina and force a smile at hearing her name pronounced _Heen_ again.  When she can suppress the instinct to shout _My fucking name is JYN_ loud enough to rattle the balcony doors.

There are days when she draws an architectural feature and gets not just the appearance but also something of the atmosphere as well; the quality of light, the incidental details of texture and ornament.  When Hera or Sabine will look over her shoulder and say “That’s good,” and “Nice work, ¡Bueno!”

There are days when the wintry sun on the white peaks of the Sierras is beautiful, and warm enough that one can imagine one day no longer being cold.  Days when the Judas trees in the gardens of the Alcazabita come into bloom, a cloud of hectic sour-cherry pink spreading across the hillside.  The colour vibrates against the grey-green of bare branches.  There are more birds singing now, the cold spring air sounds alive.

Along the road to the Instituto, bitter oranges are ripe on the street trees, glowing amid the dark foliage, and the orange blossom begins to open with a sweet, heady perfume.

There’s a day when a group of Norwegian tourists watch her sketching the brickwork arches of the cloister of San Gregorio, and two of the guys come and sit with her.  They flirt, and Jyn remembers being happy, with that man from Theatre Studies who she is not going to think about; remembers wishing she knew how to be flirtatious with him.  She begins slowly and carefully to respond to the boys’ chatter and their good cheer, making herself try, making herself not shut them out.  They’re both of them a good foot taller than her, great blond bearded Vikings with milk-white skin and big cream-coloured teeth.  Brothers; Jan and Torgeir.  Nothing happens but small talk; but they leave her smiling when they go.

Sabine paints her portrait, punked-up with drips and sploshes of violet ink, her green eyes painted huge, glowing, a Winter Soldier-like stripe of shadow lying dark across them.  “Come on, my kohl isn’t that smudged!”  They laugh.  “I’m going to call it The Rebel Girl” says Sabine.

She has made friends.  She’s tried, and it’s working.  Hera is a keen cook, she bakes shortbread and chocolate-chip cookies, date and walnut baklavas, almond pastries glazed with white sugar and apricot syrup.  The four of them sit in the sun on the roof of the building, under the washing lines, to watch the migrating storks fly overhead; they’re sheltered from the breeze and well wrapped up in their coats, a thermos of fresh coffee and a platter of Hera’s sticky cakes between them.  The sky is beginning to have a tinge of warmth in its clear blue.  Margarina is downstairs entertaining yet another new boyfriend, her fourth in two weeks.  Hera left her some of the pastries, but they find them later untouched, pushed to the back of the kitchen table, Hera’s note turned over and the scrawled message “¡No gracias!  ¡Mi régimen!”

Her diet.

“Es decir, su obsesión de lechuga,” says Hera.

Margarina eats five things; lettuce, instant packet chicken noodle soup, instant packet mashed potato, bread, and ham.  Jamón York, no jamón jamón, as everyone instantly qualifies it, finally explaining something that has always puzzled Jyn.  Jamón jamón is the traditional air-cured kind, the Spanish prosciutto; Jamón York, the wet, rubbery, pink packet ham.  British ham.  Margarina buys it every other day, along with her packets of soup and For-Mash-make-Smash, and her endless iceberg lettuces, at Lidl in the Plaza Federico Garcia Lorca.

Shakespearean tragic themes in Lorca. _Don’t think about him…_

She often sees other students about the streets and in the University Library and the little cafes and canteens of the Instituto, the Language Centre, and the Faculty of Humanities.  Once, she thinks she sees Cassian Andor, across the canteen at the Fine Arts Institute.  But what would a Theatre Studies major be doing there? – it can’t have been him.  She ducks away out of sight before he can spot her, and heads out quickly without getting her coffee.

Dark hair, a fine beard that looked as though it would be soft to the touch; brown eyes, a shy smile.  A quiet man, interesting but unassuming, coming to life when he talked about his subject, or listened to her talk about hers… 

She sees him one night in her dream, sitting slim and smiling opposite her in the Café Futbol, licking his fingers neatly after eating the next-to-last of the churros; and she wakes in a frustrated panic, as if from a nightmare. 

But there had been nothing nightmarish about the man from Theatre Studies.  Who she doesn’t think about.  She has friends now.  She doesn’t need to think about him.  

He had very nice hands, nice long fingers, she’s seeing his tongue now licking along those fingers, and she feels sweaty and overheated although it’s another cool night.

_I had coffee with him **one time** ; this isn’t Romeo and Juliet.  Pull yourself together, Erso, and let it go._

The hillside below the walls of the Alcazabita is beginning to flush with faint green; and very soon it will be March.

**

“Dance class is tonight!” says Sabine, gleeful, Saturday afternoon.

“No.”

“Yeah!  Come on.  You said you’d give it a try.  We’re _all_ going.  Han is back from his trip, the guy doing the teaching, he’s a bit of a skirt-chaser but he knows how to dance.  Come on, Jyn, come with us, it’s going to be fun.  Latin dance; salsa, merengue…”

“All of us? – even La Margarina?”

She’d wanted to resist the pettiness; but Marguerite is so petty herself that it’s almost addictive snatching the chances to snipe at her behind her back.  Her latest weird quirk is continually “forgetting” to wash her dishes.  In the end someone else always does them, after all; because there aren’t enough plates or glasses, or pans, to serve five people for very long.

Sabine laughs.  “Not her, no…”  She has paint under her nails and on the backs of her hands, and down the legs of her jeans.  “Me and Hera and Leia.  Please come too!  It’s not far, the Brazilian music bar on the corner of the Plaza San Gregorio and Calle Trinidad.  Saturdays and Wednesdays.  Come on.  You’ll meet people.”

“I don’t want to meet people, I didn’t come here to –“  It’s a defensive reflex that still kicks in, her brain starting to chant at her _you did not come here to make friends, no, you didn’t, you didn’t_ …

“Bullshit,” says Sabine succinctly.  “You’re coming.”

She’s coming.  She did say she’d give it a try.  And what’s the point of all this hard work, all this leaning out of the windows of her life, stretching so far out of her comfort zone it’s comical, if she retreats again now and says _No thanks, leave me alone_ …

She didn’t come here to make friends, but she’s making them just the same.

The Brazilian bar is called _Caos E Progresso_ but the interior is far from chaotic; a long bar, seating round the walls; quiet ambient lighting and a big dance floor of sprung wood stained mint green.  There’s already quite a crowd at 7pm, most of them warming up, bopping like nervous teenagers to a gentle rumba beat.  The hooks on the wall by the toilets are hung three and four deep with warm winter jackets and coats and there are more piled on the banquette seating. 

A tall man with honey-brown hair and a golden tan charges across the room, opening both arms wide in a grand gesture.  “Princesa!”

“Ah, fuck off, Han,” says Leia.  “Please stop calling me that, I’m not gonna keep asking.”

“Aww.”  He swoops on her and delivers the inevitable both-cheeks kiss.  “You brought your buddies!  Welcome to the Millennium Dance Club, you guys!”

Sabine is laughing as he pounces on her and double-kisses her too.  Leia sighs.  “Hera, Jyn, this is Han Solo, dance teacher extraordinaire and 100% all-round good guy, according to him.”

“You love me anyway, princess.”

“He _is_ a good teacher. Otherwise than that, don’t believe a word he says.”

Han Solo laughs, and it sounds only very slightly forced.  “You gonna help me do a demo, your high-and-saltiness?”

To Jyn’s surprise, instead of flipping him off, Leia sighs again theatrically and takes his hand.  “Okay then.  If only to keep you quiet.”  They move into the centre of the dance floor and Han nods to an enormous, shaggy-haired man standing behind the bar, who bends down and adjusts the music system.  The slow music breaks off; people shuffle back, leaving an open space as a new melody starts up.  Han and Leia stop, facing one another, and for a moment are completely still; her poised and calm, him smiling down at her.  Then he places his hand at her waist and draws her closer, she raises her arms, and they begin to move.

It feels oddly intimate, watching the two of them as they dance.  They move smoothly, sensually, in unison with one another.  Leia’s white bell-flower skirt floats around her. 

The room is warm enough for Jyn to be comfortable in her shirtsleeves.  Most of the other women have dressed-up, like Leia and she feels a niggle of self-consciousness, standing there in her everyday outfit of sensible flat boots, tee-shirt and combat trousers.  She isn’t a skirt-wearer, really; doesn’t own a single pair of heels, for all she’s been teased all her life for her height.  Her clothes are a sign of who she is. 

Except, is she, anymore?  She has been changing; the Jyn who stands here is not quite the same tight-wrapped person who got off that cold train on the first of February, just three weeks ago. 

The hairy barman has changed the lighting as well as the music, and Han and Leia are dancing in the warm gold of two spots, the rest of the crowd reduced to dark shapes around the edge of their pool of light.  They swing round one another, hips gyrating, footwork neat and graceful.  For a big guy, Han is a startlingly good dancer, sensual and controlled at once.  Leia darts around him like a dragonfly, white skirt and silver velvet vest top gleaming, her pale arms upraised as he spins her, her hands caught again gently in his. 

It looks fun; and despite the acid backchat between them a few moments ago, now that they’re dancing they are smiling at one another and showing every sign of being immensely happy and perfectly attuned.  Perhaps he’s not such an arsehole after all, this handsome man with the surfer’s hair and the broad grin.  A guy who runs salsa classes in a bar in a provincial university town is probably not a suitable boyfriend for a woman with the ambition of a politician and the drive of a dynamo.  Leia plans to own her own New York gallery within five years and revolutionise the Fine Art world before she’s thirty.  It’s hard to imagine boyfriends are even on her radar.  But just the same, she looks happy in the circle of his arms, for these few minutes, the two of them in tune and in sync.

Their dance finishes with a flourish; Leia whirls round him and is pulled close, their knees press together and Han scoops her and dips her into a flawless back-bend.  She comes up smiling into his smile, and then spins out of his arms and turns away, cool as ice again.  Han snorts wryly at her instantly glacial face and holds out his hand; and linking hands once more they both bow to the audience.

They’ve made it all look so fluent and easy; but it surely won’t be.  Jyn glances nervously to left and right, at the other students, wondering who else like her is an absolute beginner at this.  She’s going to have to try and learn that footwork, those slinky moves, and she has no idea how. 

As the lights come up again she notices another problem.  How many more women than men there are in the club.  If she’s lucky, she’ll get to dance with someone taller than she is, and she might get to escape being expected to learn the boy’s part before she can even do the steps with someone leading her.  But chances are the beginners will be working together, so she may still be doomed…

“Okay,” Han calls out “So that’s salsa.  Eso es salsa, el baile más super-sexy del mundo.”

Sabine sniggers in Jyn’s ear.  “He’s always saying that, he thinks it’s cool or something.”

“They were so good,” breathes Hera, impressed and happy.  “Leia looks like a princess when she dances!  But whoa, that footwork is complicated!”  She pulls on one of her long braids, turning to grin down at Jyn.  “And I can dance a sousta…”

“I can’t dance anything,” Jyn tells them.  “I must be mad.”

“You’ll get the hang of it, give it a chance.”  Sabine is pulling her forward determinedly and the urge to pull away in response becomes overwhelming, a panic gut-level thing twisting inside her. 

She gasps “Please, no, wait, I – I need to –“ as she tugs her arm out of Sabine’s hand and turns back towards the banquette and the pile of coats, vaguely hoping for the reassurance of seeing her way out still easy and open behind her; _grab your jacket, you can still run_ –

\- and her movement brings her up almost smack against someone coming in.  A quilted coat, familiar blue fabric with white piping down the sleeve and pale fur at the neck, and a familiar faint smell of tobacco and coffee and something indefinable and male, carried on the aura of cold evening air clinging to the coat.  His voice says “Oh” in surprise and Jyn’s head flies up; and it’s him.

“Oh!”

She leaps back.  Too late to avoid him, now she has to endure him trying to avoid her instead.

Except that Cassian has jumped as well and is now holding up his hands as if he would like to catch and steady her; and he’s beaming.  Nervous and breathless he says “Oh!  Jyn!  I’m so glad to see you!”

“What?”  _Why would he say that, didn’t he try to escape from her?_

“I’m so happy to – to run into you, I haven’t seen you since – and I screwed up ‘cos I didn’t get your number –“

“What?”

“I – I –“ and slowly his face falls.  It dawns on Jyn with the slow advance of an iceberg that she’s not just staring but glaring. 

_Oh God, no._

_Modulate your fucking face, Erso._

“I’m so sorry.  Cassian.  I – I – this is a shock.  I’m so glad to see you, too.”

The others are both staring at them.  In her peripheral vision she sees Sabine glance at Hera with an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“Really?” Cassian is saying uncertainly.  “It’s okay if – I mean – shit, I’m sorry, were you? –“

Jyn rushes on, trying to patch the broken links between them.  “I screwed up too, I didn’t get your number either did I?  And then you went off with your girlfriend and – and –“

“With my -?”

“Your –“

“Wait, what?  Professor Mozmar’s not my girlfriend, my God, I’d be in so much trouble!”

_Professor Mozmar?  That elegant woman in the Plaza Santa Ana – she was one of his tutors?_

The lights have come up again while they are flailing their verbal way around one another, and there’s a cheerful shout from the middle of the dance floor.  Jyn finally manages to school her shocked gaping smile into something a fraction more controlled.

“Okay, everyone!  Vamos, gente, vamos a bailar!  If you’re a beginner, I’m gonna teach you the basic steps now, so find yourselves a partner and let’s dance!”

On her right, Hera and Sabine are manoeuvring onto the dance floor and trying to get into a conventional hold.  As the experienced dancer, Sabine is dancing boy, despite being a good ten centimetres shorter than her friend, and Hera is laughing at her own clumsiness.  Everyone else is doing the same, pairing up hastily, some couples even starting to swing their hips in time to the music.

She looks up at Cassian again. He’s hauling his coat off, grinning breathlessly at her.  “Wanna dance?”

“Are you any good?”

“I’m terrible.”  He holds out one hand.  He looks thoroughly unsure, and thoroughly happy. 

“I’m worse than terrible,” she tells him quickly.

“Then, that’s good, no?  We’ll learn together.”

_Okay.  I can do this.  We can do this._

“Why are you learning to dance?” Jyn asks, trying to deflect the moment of truth for a split second more, give herself time to comprehend the fact that out of nowhere that nice man from _day-fucking- **one**_ is here with her and being just as nice as before and it was all a misunderstanding and –

“I have to learn for a play I’m in.  My character is supposed to be really good, so I gotta lot of work to do!”

“Then don’t you want to dance with someone who _is_ good?”

“But – I’d like to dance with you.  Jyn?  If – if you’d like to?”

He’s looking down at her, so quiet, so eager, disguising it so unsuccessfully.  No-one ever looks at Jyn like that.  Her heart is pounding, and she hasn’t even started to dance.

She takes his hand.  “Yeah.  Yeah.  Yes please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The estufas, under-table electric bar heaters, may be safer nowadays than they were when I lived in a fairly shabby flat in Granada twenty years ago - I certainly hope so, I'm pretty sure mine was a bit of a fire hazard!


	3. Por la calle siento frio/Que me corta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first dance class, and an unexpected question afterwards: "Jyn, would you let me walk you home?"

“Okay!”  Han’s voice has got louder; he’s put on some kind of headset with a mic and is being broadcast over the PA system, speaking right through the music.  “Vamos a bailar, huh?  Oh yeah!  Okay, I need you all to listen to the music – escucha a la música, okay folks?  Now get into hold and stand with your feet shoulder width apart, and on the first beat in the bar, guy steps forward with his left foot, transfers his weight half forward, and just kinda _lifts_ his right foot to mark the next beat and then puts it down again.” He’s moving back and forth slowly as he speaks, and it’s possible he may be matching the moves to the description, but from the far side of a crowd of taller dancers Jyn can’t see his feet at all.  “Girls, at the same time, you step _back_ with your _right_ foot and then lift your _left_ foot to mark the beat.  Then you return to the start position and mark one beat; and then you repeat the moves, going _backward_ if you’re the _guy_ or _forward_ if you’re the _girl_!  Okay?  And this is the paso atrás.  Okay, let’s dance!”  He grins rakishly and starts repeating himself in Spanish, but a proportion of the couples are already starting to move; some cautiously, others with a casual ease that is downright alarming. 

The music this time is soft and fairly slow, with upbeat cheerful lyrics about going out in the street and hearing everyone say hello.  Han is calling out cheerfully on the PA system; a la derecha, a la izquierda, atrás, adelante, eso es salsa, c’mon, guys…

Jyn and Cassian stand staring at their feet.

“Joder,” says Cassian, almost inaudibly under his breath. 

He’s got one hand placed on her upper back now and is holding her close-but-not-too close, careful and a little shyly.  There’s still a clear space between them, but she can feel the pressure of his fingers through her tee-shirt.  Somehow hearing him curse is comforting; it seems as if he’s as uncertain of what to do as she. 

“Yeah,” she says quietly “talk about clear as mud, right?  Let’s give it a try and see if we can work it out…”

They rock back and forth, shifting their weight.  Jyn tries to find a count to follow, because how do you know when is the first beat in the bar when you don’t know when the bar starts in the first place? 

It has to start on the first line of a verse, doesn’t it?  Right?

And isn’t Cassian supposed to be leading her?  Whatever that actually means…

She’s acutely aware of his nearness; his hands touching her, his throat in front of her eyes, lean and rather sinewy.  His shirt collar is open and there’s a tiny scrap of chest hair showing right at the base of the V of cotton.  It looks oddly soft and silky.  His fingertips are flexing and easing again, pressing rhythmically on her back.  She has to tilt her head back and raise her eyes to look into his.

Each time she does, there’s a faint but unmistakable warmth inside her, and she feels breathless as his bright brown eyes meet hers.

 _Concentrate, Jyn, concentrate.  La_ _música.  Come on, Erso._

Cassian’s fingers lift from her back and the side of his hand pushes her very slightly as he steps forward.  She responds hastily with a clumsy backward step; and that’s it, they’re dancing.  Kind of.

Sometimes their feet shuffle together, and both of them are on the beat , and when that happens she feels as though this is what they’re meant to be doing.  Sometimes for a few measures everything flows; until it doesn’t.  But each time they get in synch the space between them warms imperceptibly again, as if it’s being charged with some kind of current.  Jyn finds herself grinning; until the rhythm becomes conscious instead of sinking into her muscles, and once more the flow vanishes.  Her brain issues frantic commands that mismatch with the pulse in the air and make things worse.  She loses her place, Cassian loses his, and they stop, and stare at their feet, and start again.

And stop again.  Shit; she was leading.

The flow doesn’t even come, the next time; it’s all awkwardness from the first step, and she’s galumphing like a walrus.

She lets him stop her and time the re-start.  They manage four bars, then five, gradually starting to relax just a little.  His closeness is still a shock at every movement, she can practically feel his heartbeat through his fingertips, and he must be hearing hers, it’s so loud in her blood.  She looks down at the floor, then up into his eyes again, and sees how he’s smiling, half nervous and half encouraging; and how seldom she’s ever been this close to a man’s mouth before, to a pair of thin, well-shaped lips that look made for kissing, to a jawline she’d like to run a fingertip down…

The patterns of footwork seem oddly asymmetrical, so that her feet keep wanting to do the same thing on both sides, instead of forwards on one side and backwards on the other.  But thinking about the unnaturalness of the pattern is enough to bring her brain into things again, and that is bad news; she steps backward at the same time as Cassian, and the charged gap opens up wide.  There, they’ve both lost the rhythm again.  They stop, she hears herself saying “Sorry, sorry, sorry” like a chorus, and he’s saying too “No, no, that was me, I’m so sorry –“

“No, I think it was me.  Oh, this is confusing. My feet want to do different things and the explanation wasn’t – wasn’t - and –“

_And I’m not used to being held.   Not used to **that** at all._

“Yeah, the explanation wasn’t – yeah, it _wasn’t_ , was it?!”  Cassian’s mouth quakes from disappointed down-turn back into a barely-there smile.  “I listened again when he said it in Spanish and it was just as bad.  Although his grammar is okay…”

Despite her frustration and clumsiness, and the shivering intensity of being close to him, Jyn starts to laugh.  “He’s got one up on me, then!”

“One – one upon you?” Cassian has a rather sweet little frown; it makes him look about seventeen.

“I mean, he’s doing better than me.  My grammar is really bad.  I need so much practice.”

His guiding hand pats at her back, and they begin to shuffle again.  Jyn is starting to bob up and down like a rubber duck.  She loses the rhythm and grits her teeth and pushes on, catching up with him; she’s all raggedy clumsiness but she’s going to keep a grip if it kills her.

Oh God, he’s leaning in.  He’s close enough she can feel the warmth of his breath on her ear.

“We could talk in Spanish if you like?  For the practice?”

Jyn tilts her head back, looks into his eyes and makes herself smile without shaking.  “I know I ought to say yes; but I’m already struggling with the dancing, I don’t think adding another thing I’m no good at would – would be a good idea.”

“No problem.”

He smiles and shrugs, and his fingers press gently against her back.

“Hey!”  Han pushes his voice and one long arm between them, stopping their movement just as they start to get in synch again.  “You guys are not meant to be chatting!  C’mon!  Gente, ¡bailamos!”  He twirls his hand imperiously.

“Vale, jefe,” says Cassian, sotto voce.

Not sotto voce enough.  “Hey, cut that out.  Okay, if I’m the fucking jefe around here then let’s see you guys show me what you can do.  Move it – mueve tu culo, huh?”

Cassian’s eyebrows shoot up, and she wonders if he’s trying to decide which of them is being told to move their arse; whether he should be shoving their teacher on his own behalf, or defending her from the rudeness.  But he doesn’t fight, merely blinks quizzically and catches her eye.  She realises she’s gripping his shoulder as if he’s her shield.  Relaxes her hand carefully.

The music is still bouncing along, a protracted instrumental interlude with jazzy horn riffs; and Han is watching them with a critical smile.  “C’mon,” he says again.  “Let’s see you.”

Cassian touches her back and they both try to step on the beat together.  Under Han’s hawk-like eye they’re both of them all arms and legs and fingers and thumbs once more.  They lose the rhythm almost as soon as they’ve found it.  She steps back, _paso atrás_ when it have been _adelante,_ and hastily corrects herself – just as Cassian does the same trying to cover her mistake.  They crash into one another and break apart, muttering “sorry, sorry” again.  Jyn cringes as Han slides his arm between them saying “Okay, stop.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”  She looks up, into Cassian’s face; expecting disgust or exasperation she finds only anxiety, but that feels almost worse, and “I really should stop,” she says “I’m absolutely lousy at this.  Cassian, I’m so sorry, you need a proper partner who can actually –“

“Jyn, no –“

“I’m just screwing this up for you and –“

“Jyn, no, please, I –“

“Shut up, the both of you!”  Han puts his hands on his hips theatrically and glares at them both for a second.  “C’mon, let’s break this down and start again.  It’s not _serious_ , kids, it’s _dancing_.  Relax and have _fun_ , huh?  Now, come on over to the side where there’s a bit more room.  Okay.  Now.  Breathe.  No, don’t give me that face, man.  _Breathe._   Relax.  Both of you need to fucking relax.”

Jyn can feel the rigidity in her spine, and her hand is clenching on Cassian’s.  She bites her lip and makes herself soften.  Imagine it’s a martial arts class; loose and calm, calm like water, loosen your grip, loosen your stance, drop your shoulders, feel your chi…   She flicks a quick glance up at Cassian and sees he’s frowning at his own feet again; but her movement catches his eye and he looks up.  That tiny shy smile lights up his face, and her heart, again.

Under her left hand his shoulder relaxes.

“Okay,” he says softly.  “Are you okay?”

“Okay.”

Personal attention from Han is a whole different thing from his incomprehensible directions over the PA.  He’s switched off his headset and for the next two tracks he stays focussed on the two of them, steering and coaching, murmuring endlessly “Forward and mark, back and mark, back and mark, forward and mark” like a mantra.  He cuts in once to dance a few rounds of the melody with Jyn and give her pointers on moving from the hip; “That’s it, sweetheart, just sway into me like you’ve always wanted to be here.”  Then, to Cassian’s astonishment, steps into a dance hold with him, saying “Okay, so I’m a chica-chico, just for you, hey man?  C’mon, don’t panic.  Just imagine it; tú y yo, novios, seis meses, right?  That’s gonna get Miss Princess-of-all-I-survey Leia Organa hot under the collar, huh?!”  It’s funny, and then rather sweet, watching the two of them as Cassian awkwardly tries to lead the other man, and Jyn finds herself grinning, and controls it hastily before he’ll think she’s laughing at him.  Han is stepping away already, saying “You’re starting to lead more gently, that’s good, you gotta lead so it’s an indication, not a command.”  Then she’s grabbed and pushed back into her partner’s arms, and he relaxes again visibly.  Han chuckles.

For half a song he simply stands beside Cassian, dancing alone, parallel to them, with his arms upraised as if holding an invisible partner; and all the time, he’s watching their feet and smiling encouragingly.  “That’s it, guys, nothing fancy, just keep doing that movement till it gets in the muscle memory.  And back and mark, forward and mark, _atrás y marca, adelante y marca_ , that’s it, cool!”

And, slowly, so very, very, painfully slowly, it begins to feel like dancing for whole minutes at a time.  Whole verses of the song at a time.  Whole songs.

Her legs are shaking and aching when they stop for a break and she digs in her trouser pockets for money to buy a bottle of water.  Cassian has already headed straight to the bar and before she can get near the front of the pack of people there, he’s been served and is working his way out again through the scrum of bodies, clutching two bottles of Lanjarón.  He appears at her elbow, puffing slightly, holding one out.  “Drink, Jyn, you look exhausted!”

“That’s because I am…”  The water is cold and soft in her dry mouth; and without thinking she closes the cap again and rolls the chilled bottle across her neck, tilting her head back, baring her throat to it.  Condensation kisses her skin, blissfully cool.

Cassian’s eyes are fixed on her when she straightens again, and he swallows.  For a moment she thinks he’s gulping at his own water; but he hasn’t opened the bottle yet.

“So, are you enjoying -?”  He sounds hoarse. 

“Yes.  Yes, I am.  I’m afraid I’m never going to be any good though!  But yes, it’s okay, isn’t it?”

“It’s better for me than the last class I was doing.  Only that joke about being novios was a little – ah – unexpected.”

At least he’s okay with joking about it, not trying to pretend it was never said.  Han is just turning away from the bar, grinning confidently down at Leia as she hovers beside him like a silver and white hornet.  Another young woman plucks his sleeve and he turns and hugs her theatrically; Leia pulls an exasperated face and walks away.

“I get the impression Han’s a hell of a flirt,” Jyn says. “You gonna ignore him?”

“I’ll ignore him if you do, okay?”

“Huh?  He wasn’t flirting with _me_.”

“Right.  Sure.”

“He wasn’t,” Jyn insists, bewildered.  Cassian raises an eyebrow, silent.  She looks away, scanning the room.  Sabine is in the line for the toilets, Hera appears to be comforting a pissed-off looking Leia. 

The music level rises and bang on cue Han’s brightest tones cut in once more on the PA system again.  “Okay, everyone, who’s up for some more dancing?  Vamos a bailar otra vez.  Práctica, práctica!  Así la danza, así la música, así la vida.  La vida es breve, entonces bailamos!  C’mon, guys!”

Jyn looks around, wondering if anyone else will dance with her; Leia and Hera have paired up already and Sabine is still in the toilet queue.  There’s no way Cassian is not going to want to change partners after being stuck with her clumber-hoofing around for the entire first hour of the class…

“Hey!  Hey, Jyn, are you ready?”  He’s stuffing the half-empty water bottle into his back pocket, leaving it jutting out like a gun.  He holds out one lean hand.  “Would you like to dance some more?”

Maybe she’s wrong about that, then...

**

Officially the class runs till ten-thirty pm; but the music goes on, and so does the dancing. 

Leia seems to have forgiven Han his ongoing attempts to flirt with every living soul on the dance floor.  Though she’s keeping her face impassively cool, the two of them are back to twirling round one another, their footwork snappy and precise, arms gentle, hands reaching out to touch and hold on.  Sabine and Hera are dancing together again too.  But Jyn’s legs are aching from the repetition of unfamiliar movements for two hours.

_I thought I was fit.  Ha-ha._

She looks around for Cassian, but he’s vanished again.  No sign of him at the bar, and she can’t see into the gents.

_Oh God, are you actually trying to spy on whether he’s gone for a slash?  You imbecile, you’re a bloody stalker!_

_He’s got a right to go home as and when he pleases without your say-so.  He’s danced with you all evening, that’s way above the call of duty already.  Give the man some space._

She finds her jacket, buried under a mound of coats and scarves on the banquette where she left it, and pulls it on.  Time to head back to the flat, have a hot shower, maybe some toast if the kitchen isn’t occupied, and get to bed.

She hopes Margarina and her latest conquest won’t be too much in evidence.  Sometimes the French girl takes over the bathroom, for water-based fun and games.  Even when she and whoever-it-is-tonight are only occupying the dining room and the couch, it’s getting increasingly hard not to snigger out loud as yet another good-looking boy is introduced as “mi nuevo novio”.  La Margarina is enjoying being single and free, no doubt about that; and it’s unfair to undermine her, however much of a cow she can be sometimes.  You’re only young once, after all.  Just because Jyn didn’t get to play games like that doesn’t mean she has the right to cock-block anyone else.  And besides, she’s pretty certain it would be the quickest way to increase Margarina’s bitchiness sevenfold.

_Well, I’ve got to face her, and the dance class is over.  Can’t put off leaving forever._

Her hand is on the door when a bright voice says her name behind her.  “Jyn!”  _Right_ behind her.  “Are you leaving already?”  Cassian’s voice sounds eager and puzzled, and when she turns he is beaming down at her hopefully, but his face begins to shut as she doesn’t answer.

_Wait, am I doing it again?  Don’t frown don’t frown don’t –_

“Oh, uh, yeah – the class is over, isn’t it?”

“Of course.  Yeah.”  He looks as though a door was slammed in his face and a boot stomped on his foot; and as though he thinks he should have expected it.

“I’m – I’m sorry – I didn’t – I’m not used to having anyone to say goodnight to, I – I – are you staying on?”

He’s gone completely guarded again.  “I had thought I might dance some more.  But maybe not.  Not much point without a partner and I don’t really know anyone else here.” And then “Shit, no, that came out wrong.”

“What?  No, huh?”  Oh, she must be sending so many bad signals right now; she’s probably coming over as some kind of flip-flopping twit who can’t make her mind up.  Blowing hot and cold.  Only –

_What does he mean by - ? What came out wrong? – aren’t **I** the one coming out wrong?_

_Aand here I go over-thinking as well -_

“It’s okay, I have lectures in the morning, sorry I made assumptions,” says Cassian, and he looks away and turns away; and his lips form a word under his breath that sounds and looks very like “Mierda.”

“Yeah, yeah, lectures, me too – I’m sorry, I’m – I –“ She’s speaking to his back, but he isn’t quite moving yet and Jyn gulps another breath and gabbles “I’m really not used to this, to people – I’m sorry – What is your lecture on tomorrow?”

_Oh God, Jyn, what the fuck?_

“La Casa de Bernarda Alba.”  His face is weary and closed as he turns back to her.  “It’s okay, I’m really sorry I said that, what I just, it’s – I wasn’t thinking how it would sound – you don’t have to make a chat and – shit, I don’t know the word – molificar - I didn’t mean to sound manipulating…”

“Mollify - I think – I guess? – for molificar?  And –“ it suddenly hits her what he’s talking about – _shit shit shit fuck **shit** – deep breath, Erso, don’t say shit_ – “Uh, it’s okay, I know you weren’t – ah shit –“ She flounders for something to say, anything that isn’t another swear word - “Will you be here for Wednesday’s class?”

“Ye-es,” says Cassian slowly.  “I do have to learn the dance, after all.”

“Please will you dance with me again?  I’m no good at this – this – the dancing and – this whole thing with people – but I really have enjoyed dancing with you this evening.  I really have.”  Horrendous how breathless she feels after pushing that out; and she wants to kick herself in the head for her part of this endless entangling misunderstanding.  Just when they’d been okay all evening.  _Come on, woman, get it all out in the open, you’re on a roll_ \- “And I’m not used to this socialising, and not, really _not_ used to being so – so _close_ to someone.  Physically, I mean.”

He blinks, and she has a split second to think _Now you’ve **really** fucked this up_ – before Cassian says

“Me neither.”  He swallows as his eyes meet hers again.  “It’s – it’s been a while.  Is it okay? – I mean, are you hating it?”

“N-no…” she says.  Unhappily.  Honestly.  _Open the windows, open the doors, Erso.  I didn’t come here to –_ “No, it’s okay, I – I kind of like it.  But I’m not used to it.  So it’s weird.  You – you too?”  It’s hard to believe; he’s so attractive, surely he’d have fans swarming round him, admirers in every quarter.

But he nods, awkward, almost nervous.  “Yeah.  It’s the hardest thing about this play, really.  The dancing.  It’s so – it’s _intimate_.”

“Yeah…”

They’re still right by the door as they speak, but Jyn doesn’t want to leave while he’s here.  If she lingers much longer her flatmates will pack up and whisk her away, and she’ll lose the chance this conversation is offering her.

Her coat trails from her hands.  Cassian has his hands stuffed in his pockets, but the guarded, shut-in look in his eyes is fading, and he bites his lower lip for a moment and says “I’ll – I’m gonna get my coat and – Jyn, would you let me walk you home?  I dunno how far it is for you, but you haven’t been here long and – I mean – it’s dark and maybe, ah –“

“Oh, yes please! –“ because he’s right, she wasn’t really enjoying the idea of walking home alone at night in what is still not a terribly familiar place, even though she knows the way.  It isn’t Bromley.  “Thank you.  Yes, I’d be really grateful.”

And how weird this is too, that although she’s fumbling like a total fool even to talk to him, he seems to be acting the same, just as nervous, and somehow she knows – she just knows – she can trust him.

“I’ll get my coat,” Cassian says again.  He nods at her, looking almost boyish, and she realises with a shy  and unexpected sense of pleasure that he is pleased.  Pleased and relieved.  He darts away, leaving her hovering by the door, contemplating her situation in anxiety and astonishment.

_He likes me.  I like him.  I have no idea what I am doing here and this is agony. **Agony.**   But I don’t want it to stop._

_I like him._

“It’s not far,” she says hastily to Cassian as he reappears with one arm in his parka already.

“That’s okay, I don’t mind the walk.”

“It’s very nice of you.”

“It’s okay.”

That smile again; he looks so young when he smiles like that.

That smile again, that she returns to him; the helpless hopeful smile he draws up from the seabed of her heart.

_Agony and delight and agony; and I have no idea what I’m doing.  Please don’t let it stop…_

**

They walk up the Calle Fénix together.

They’ve been talking about “The House of Bernarda Alba” for the five minutes it takes, even walking slowly, to get from the bar to the apartment entrance.  Now they’re only a few doors down from home, and Jyn can see the lights on the frontage of the pork butcher’s shop, immediately downstairs from the flat.  She doesn’t want the walk to end.  As soon as they started talking about the play, instead of fumbling at their hopes and fears like bats in gloves, it was as though the lights in her mind came on and she knew exactly what to say again.  She’s always been shy, never allowed herself to think about it, told herself it didn’t matter; and now suddenly it does; but with the impetus of having made friends with her flatmates she’s got something inside urging her on.  A rocket, throwing out propellant into the shock of space, creating thrust where she’s lived in inertia for so long she could never have imagined movement.  Yet here it is, she’s moving. 

She starts to dawdle more, although the cold night air is creeping in down her collar and into her cuffs. 

The last two shops before the butchers are a bridal wear store and a stationers.  Jyn glances in the stationers’ window and hesitates, idling towards it, hoping it doesn’t look too much like the clumsy delaying tactic it is ( _I have no idea, no idea what I’m doing…)._ “Those are – those are nice notebooks, look.”  Hardback bound, with jacket wrappers of alicatado mosaic designs.  “I like good notebooks.  They inspire me.  My adopted dad used to call it my ‘stationery porn thing’.”

“Porn?  Wow, that’s – that’s strong.  Does he – disapprove of notebooks?”

“No.” She laughs for a second, a bare huff of sound in her throat.  “Or, well, yes, kind of.  He disapproved of everything that wasn’t utilitarian and practical.  He was very left wing and he was one of those people who make the revolution sound really dull and depressing.  He was always more interested in taking all the nice stuff away from the rich than in trying to distribute it fairly afterwards.  And he hated frivolity.”

Cassian is listening attentively and she feels a rush of heat come into her face. _Heavens, why am I rabbiting on about Saw?_

“He sounds – interesting.”

 _You can say that again._ “Yeah…”

A little side-twitch of a grin.  “Sounds like he would hate the play I’m in.”

Bless him, a diversion.  “This play with all the dancing?  Yes, it doesn’t sound like his cup of tea.”

“It’s not just the dancing.  It’s, like, one of the themes in the background is that argument, and the story is saying it’s wrong, you gotta have the frivolity as well, or the revolution isn’t worth having.”  He’s standing next to her, close enough that she has to look up into his face.  He has his hands in his coat pockets again and his head is bare.  The pale fur around the collar of the parka presses close round his neck and she imagines how soft and warm it must feel on his skin. His breath is a faint puff in the air each time he speaks.  “That’s why I was interested in it, for the politics.  I didn’t expect to get the role I got.”

The cold is really seeping into Jyn’s jacket now and she’s steadily more aware of how her shirt clings damply to her skin.  But she wants to keep talking.  “What’s the play about?”

Cassian shrugs, nipping his upper lip between his teeth.  He looks almost embarrassed for a moment.  “It’s – it’s based on one of Professor Mozmar’s favourite movies.  She calls it a guilty pleasure movie though.  She’s adapted it to bring out the political side more.  But it turns out there’s still a lot of dancing!”  The half-light from the shop window casts a glow across his face as he shrugs and smiles again, creasing up his eyes.  “It’s a story about two brothers, in Cuba, just before the revolution there, and one of them is really political, but he’s kinda neglecting his family and his own safety for the cause; and the other, the younger one, he’s just trying to keep his job and look after their mother, and dance.  And he falls in love with this girl…”  His expression is growing more and more bashful and when he says _in love_ he drops his eyes for a moment before glancing back at her.  “I read for the older brother but she cast me as Javier.”

“The dancing one?”

“Yeah.  The – it’s funny, really – the romantic lead.  **_Me_**.  I thought I’d get the speeches about the future and workers’ rights and seeing the bigger picture, and instead I’m learning lines about how you have to see the personal as well as the political, and if you aren’t happy and you haven’t loved anyone or taken care of your family, is it really worth it?.  It’s given me a lot to think about.”  And he gives a kind of double-blink, with a smile that scrunches his whole face up for a second.  “I mean, I see both sides, you know?  I used to be really idealistic and, kinda, _I’m gonna fight the government_ , like, when I was sixteen; but now I’m more like both brothers.  The revolution is important, but it’s got to be **_for_** something.”

Jyn is nodding; what a delightful (and weird) conversation to be having, at nearly eleven o’clock at night, in the light of a shop window on Phoenix Street.  When she looks up, past his shoulder and the dark silk of his hair, she can see the stars, brilliant in the frosty sky, and the silver line of the mountains standing over Llavin in the moonlight.  It’s magic; and entirely crazy.  “Yes,” she says, eagerly, running into the insanity with her own breath puffing snow-white “Yes, yes!  Because the revolution is only going to happen if people stand up and join in, and most of them don’t do that for ideals, they do it because the cause gives them hope.”

“They want a better life, exactly –“

“Yes – for them and for their families, their friends.  Not some kind of pure political virtue.”

“But if the political side isn’t there at all then no-one _starts_ the rebellion and –“

“Hah, yes, then we’re fucked!”

They’re both grinning now, puffs of emphatic white breath hitting the glass and misting it.

“If you have the politics to give it a – like, a shape, a structure –“ Cassian takes both hands out of his pockets and starts gesturing, illustrating _shape_ with random shapes in the air, _structure_ with boxy choppy lines, and she starts to giggle at the sheer pleasure of his enthusiasm –“then people’s hope can be _directed_ and it’ll be useful, make a real change.”

“Yeah!  And you’ve got a chance not to get distracted into thinking that if you buy a new car, or a lot of make-up or something –“

“Exactly!  And then you’ve got an opportunity, because the people are working together and the revolution is theirs, not just the politicians’ and the theory guys, and it’s built on hope _and_ ideals!” He’s smiling broadly and she beams back, feeling her face crease with delight, thinking _We’ve just solved the woes of Capitalism, oh if only; but he’s so lovely, he’s too lovely…_

And there are bells ringing; a church clock, and a second one further off, chiming the hour; and then the clock of the Ayuntamiento in Cathedral Square.  It’s not just almost-eleven, it is eleven; and it’s freezing, her nose and her daft grinning face are faintly numb from the night air.  The mountains are still snow-limned, all silver and bright in the distance.

Cassian chuckles; he’s nodding sideways, in the direction of the Town Hall bells and their frosty carillon.  “I like this tune.” He hesitates, hums along with a couple of bars and then sings to the last line of the melody, very softly. “Vuelve conmigo a la Sierra Nevada…”

There’s a smiling pause, cold despite their happy warmth; night air sneaking into collars and cuffs and caressing hopeful cheeks.  Neither one of them, it seems, knowing what to do, and neither one wanting to break the hush, or end the last moment they have together here in the street.

Jyn takes the plunge, because she must (because it’s easier to be the one severing contact than the one staring at the cut edges and wondering how much blood there will be – but this isn’t like that, isn’t, isn’t, it’s just _goodnight_ and) – “I really should get home.”

“Oh.  Yeah, of course – which way is it now?”

“We’re here.”  She gestures at the apartment doorway, the dark entrance between the window of ham and salchichón and the window of sleek white satin and rose-embroidered bridesmaid dresses.  “First floor.  That’s our balcony, on the corner.  We’re above the butchers.  Lovely smell of embutidos and pimentón in the dining room, even when none of us is having them.”

“Mmm, I wouldn’t mind that.”  He’s smiling again.  “I love chorizo.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty mouth-watering at times.  I – anyway, I – ah, I’m home, so – thank you for walking back with me.”

“You’re welcome.  So I’ll – I’ll see you Wednesday?”

“Yeah, Wednesday.  Definitely.”

Should she give him a cheek-kiss for goodbye, like everyone does, all the time, here? – is it still okay when you – when –

She is struggling to get used to it, the casual closeness, the continual moving into another person’s immediate space, the continual way others are coming into hers.  And if Cassian brushes up close into her aura now, not dancing but just -

Is it loaded, in the way it feels surely it must be, when the cheek you kiss is one you shiver at the thought of touching?

Jyn leans up and in, hopefully and refusing the terror, saying _damn it, damn it_ in her mind, _damn it, this is what people do here, act normal God damn you Erso_ –

And Cassian hesitates and hovers, as if all too aware of her tension, and for a second they both almost jerk away –

She makes herself dart in ( _it’s only a Spanish goodbye, you aren’t opening your guard to a knife_ ) and presses her lips softly onto his cheek.  Right at the edge of the dark scruff of beard.  Cool skin, the minute prickle of hair that is softer and less coarse than she’d expected –

He kisses her cheek back, and she wonders if her touch feels as hot to him, as his mouth was to her. 

She dips back, the other side.  Peck, peck, the second kiss; and that’s goodbye and goodnight between friends, in Spanish.  Jyn takes her fear into the locked room at the back of her mind and orders it to stay there; and looks up at him again as she drops down from standing on her toes.  He’s smiling, luminous and bemused and so encouraging she realises he must at some point have known another British person who got all – British – about this.

Her face tingles where he kissed her.  Her lips tingle.  Her skin tingles all over, from the cold air and the heat of this energy, this quickened heartbeat.

“Goodnight,” he says softly, his voice full to the brim with that little smile.

“Goodnight, Cassian.”

**

It’s March; and perhaps it is the beginning of spring, at long last.

There are days when the frost melts on the pavements before midday; and then, suddenly, days when there’s no frost to be seen.  In the gardens of the Alcazabita there are narcissi in flower, and huge anemones, purple and crimson and lilac, with black velvet eyes.

There’s the day she emails her supervisor at Chelsea College of Art to say “I’m going to need to refine my thesis subject slightly”; because as the spring comes on, swift and strong now, as the green and coloured life burns out of the frosted land, she’d realised; I cannot write about the architecture of Al-Andaluz without writing about the gardens as well, the connections are too integral, too nuanced to ignore.

Her sketches and paintings are full of the tiny yellow roses, and the shadow of new leaves on marble, the miraculous rippling reflections of water in sunlight.

There are lectures, and class trips; and she can make sense of more and more of what is said on both.  The insanity of trying to study in a foreign language is slightly less scary when you can follow two thirds of what you read and almost 50% of what is said to you.

There’s a day when she gets 92% in a vocabulary test.  Her grammar is still rocky and fragmented, and every time she isn’t sure of a verb form she opts for communication over correctness.  Professor Cuervo jokes dryly that she lives in _el presente eterno_.  But she is packing in new words as fast as she can, jamming her head with every scrap of information.

There’s the day when she gets back her first essay in Spanish; it’s covered with grammatical corrections, so much red pen she starts to feel ill as she turns the pages, and suddenly the jokes don’t seem so funny.  But as she reads to the end of the notes at the end of the piece something else hits her.  Professor Akbar is addressing her argument and her content, not her Spanish.  He has given her a respectable grade, 66%, a perfectly adequate B, and a string of enthusiastic comments on her discussion of stylistic developments in the history of mocárabes and muqarnas.

There are days when Jyn Erso dances in the kitchen, waiting for her pan of water to boil, to make coffee.  Days when Sabine or Hera or Leia dances with her.  Days when Magarina comes in and stares at them in silence, and goes to the fridge to get out bread and ham for her breakfast; and when she leaves again they all fight not to laugh behind her back.

And there are days, twice a week, every week, when the evening comes and she goes with her flatmates – _her friends, her real friends, how did that happen?  Jyn, is this really you?!?_ – and they walk into the warm darkness of _Caos e Progresso_ where the music is sweet, the rhythm is happy, and Cassian Andor stands up and holds out his hand to her.

He walks her home afterwards, every time.  Is it really only two weeks since their first class together?  Is it really only three?

“When is your play on?”

“The last week of April.  Would you like to see it?”

“I’d love to, if you – if that’s okay?”

His smile.  His eyes on hers.  She still has no idea what to do, but every time this happens it’s glorious.  He smiles at her, Cassian smiles, he smiles and stands close to her in the no-longer-freezing street, and “I’ll get you a ticket,” he promises.


	4. Cuando aparezca el amor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring continues to advance in Llavin; first kisses, friendship, and a traditional Easter.

Every other week, the Instituto runs field trips.  Jyn loves them.  The guided tours that always turn out to be led by people who really, really know their stuff, who she can quiz and enthuse with and take notes from.  The pleasure of doing all that in Spanish, understanding 85% of what’s said, being able to communicate back and even make someone laugh now and then with her sense of humour rather than her weird grammar or her roundabout ways of avoiding the vocab she still doesn’t have ( _and what the hell **is** the word for the pith of an orange, for crying out loud?_ ).  The chance to see places she might never have been able to get to without an organised trip.  The crowded minibus, the laughter, the coffee stops where there’s always some local delicacy to try, the whole gang of students descending on some backstreet taberna to order platos combinados and drink beer. 

Every week, now the spring has come, someone somewhere among her never-expected circle of friends is having a party.  A rooftop or a tiny urban garden, a bar having a lock-in, a crowded lounge or a spacious apartment.  She’s never spent so much time socialising in her life; she even drinks a little, though never enough to really lose control.  A cold beer or a beaker of tinto de verano is a pleasure, among friends.  Sitting on a balcony, or in an armchair or in a circle of chairs, legs swinging over the arm of her seat, beer bottle in one hand, dish of olives resting on her lap; chatting, or listening to others chat, and feeling neither self-conscious nor tense nor as if being watched, and not priming herself to run but getting up to dance light-heartedly around the room when the music system comes on with a track she recognises from Han’s classes.  Life has never shown Jyn such things before.  This is what people mean, when they talk about fun; it isn’t something they have to force themselves into, it’s okay, it _is_ fun.

Every week the weather gets better, and the spring climbs higher into the mountains, with orchards blossoming and glowing in their cloaks of new foliage, and roadside verges suddenly scarlet with poppies.  The olive groves smell of honey and pollen and dust.  There are butterflies everywhere, and cloudless skies, and great chatterings  of sparrows flinging themselves over the rooftops.  It’s hard to believe, already, how cold it used to be.  Jyn remembers frost in these narrow streets, where now she’s glad to keep to the shady side because the mountain air is so hot and bright at midday. 

She tries to remember to use sunscreen, though she’s never had to this early in the year before.  Factor 20, when it’s barely past the equinox?  Ridiculous.  But then she spends a Saturday afternoon painting in the Patio de los Lirios, up at the Alcazabita, sitting with her back to a wall and her mind and her hands focussed almost to a meditation, painting the flowers and the fountains and the sunlight on the plasterwork; and she is so completely swept up in her work that by evening, with a painting she’s really proud of at last, she is fiery red from her hairline to the top of her bosom.  She goes to get ready for the dance class, and stands staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, gobsmacked.  

 _Oh shit, I really fucked that up.  I look like someone cooked me in chili sauce_.

She goes dancing anyway.  Missing class is not on her to-do list, not now.

Cassian’s face is a study when she arrives; wide-eyed, almost alarmed.  “Jyn!  Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.  Caught the sun a bit.”

He’s holding a bottle of water.  When she walked in he had been watching as Han and Leia executed a lively demonstration of merengue, with their smiles mischievous and their hips swinging steadily; but he turned as soon as he heard her voice.  Now he holds up one hand to brush her cheek.  The condensation on his fingers feels blissfully cool.  “Ooh, that’s nice...” she says, and without thinking adds “Please don’t stop.” 

The heat under her skin gets worse as a blush adds itself to the sunburn. 

Cassian says “Are you sure you wanna dance?  Please tell me if you – if you don’t feel well enough.”

“I’m alright.  Honestly.  Just sore.  And cross with myself.”

He looks doubtful; but says nothing more.  He lets her make her own choice.  He’s good like that.  She could be lying through her teeth and dying of some hideous fever, but he respects her decision to stay and doesn’t make a fuss.  That’s Cassian all over. 

They dance, and in the intervals between dancing he brings her water.  She hears him asking Chuy at the bar for a bottle from the very back of the fridge.  The old hippie grunts at the odd request; but then Jyn has never heard Chuy do much other than grunt, whether to customers harrying him for cocktails, Han shouting “¡Maestro, música!” over the PA, or Leia hopping behind the bar to give him an affectionate hug.  The shaggy man is a monolith of wordless good-humour, with the occasional Portuguese curse for good measure.

The water bottle is ice-cold, which has to be what Cassian was aiming for.  She tips out a little in her palms, splashes it like cologne onto her burning skin.  Drips trickle into her neckline like slow prayers.  “Oh _God_ that’s good!”  She drinks and drinks, absurdly conscious of Cassian watching her; and most of the bottle has gone.  “Gosh, I _am_ dehydrated.”

“Promise me you’ll tell me if you start to feel feverish or anything.  I can take you home if you don’t feel well.”  Cassian sounds a bit worried; then bites his lip as if embarrassed at showing it.   Jyn allows herself to twinkle at him, essays a tiny note of teasing.

“Feverish? No more than I am anyway around you.”

The sally works; Cassian drops his eyes for a second and then looks up, and a slow smile dawns on his face.  He’s gone very faintly pink.

“¿Verdad?”

“Verdad,” she says, absurdly complimented to be addressed in Spanish.

“Gracias.”

“De nada.”

“La fiebre, ¿hm?”

“Me das la fiebre, boom, boom, boom…”  Jyn hazards a few notes from the song and stops again quickly.  Feverish indeed; what on earth is she thinking of?  Her singing voice is a small rough thing, but it’s hers, and private, not something she usually shows off at all.

But Cassian is beaming at her like a man hypnotised.  There’s reward enough in that.  Oh, that smile…

“The music’s starting again.  We should dance, come on, you need to practice, right?  For the play?” 

Saved by the merengue playlist.

**

Walking her home that evening he stops outside the stationers.  “Look, some more great notebooks for you.”

They are great, too; A6 size, chunky, with moleskine style leather binding in jewel colours; crimson, carnelian, royal purple, emerald.  Several have been propped open in the display to show the pages vary; lined or squared, or blank cartridge paper for drawing. 

“Ooh, nice, yeah.”

They’re standing side-by-side, not quite looking at one another.  How many weeks since that evening when they talked about the revolution and the need for happiness, standing here, looking at notebooks?  It’s the 24th of March.  It feels as though she’s been going dancing with him for years, getting to know him slowly; the things he values, his dreams and struggles, the way his body moves, the way his hands touch things.  Things and people; her.

It’s beyond astonishment, beyond magic.  _How is this my life, now?  From where?  To be so happy?_

And, just like that, she knows; where the fulcrum of her happiness lies.

Suddenly shy with shock, Jyn leans over, trying to give a quick goodnight before panic writes itself all over her.  She gives him a kiss on the cheek, just the one, and dips her head, turning back with her soul clinging in her breath. 

“Jyn…”  His hand catches at hers, very gently, as she moves to go.  Not insistent but – there.  _Here with me, still with me, hasn’t left me once._   “Jyn, I –“

She’s been pressed up against him all evening, moving in the steps of their dance, holding on to both his hands and swaying her hips alongside his.  Merengue is a sexy stomp of a dance, less complicated than the salsa they were doing at the beginning of the month, more light-hearted; and full of hips and sass, and ass, full of keeping in tune and in sync with one another, keeping in rhythm, swinging smooth together.  They’ve been practically grinding on one another, and thinking it nothing; but now all her nerves seem to be firing off from this tiny point of contact where just his fingertips are pressed on hers. 

She tries to say “yes?” and no sound comes out at all.  She’s looking up into his eyes, and they are bright with the same longings and fears that pull her own heart in two.

“Jyn, may I –“ his glance drops to her mouth for a moment.  He swallows and tries again – “May I -?”

“Yes –“ it comes out in a rush, in a fever - “yes, yes, please –“

A minute grin, a flicker, lightning-quick and incredulous, rushes over his face and vanishes; it leaves the gentlest smile, like an afterimage.  They draw closer, and a little closer, and he bends his head very slowly down to hers and kisses her lips.

Two points of focus, in the whole night, the whole street; his hand, his lips.  Breath ghosting across her upper lip; and his moustache tickles slightly, as if it’s teasing her, independent of the warm mouth covering hers.  Jyn hesitates for an instant, soul-naked and in shock, tasting, savouring, finally understanding.  She leans up into the kiss, pressing back.  Warmth.  Touch,  Tenderness.

When their lips part she finds her free hand has crept up to him and anchored itself, fingers latching into the cotton of his shirt and pressing the lean body inside.  Muscles, ribs, spine.

He feels good against her.  His breath is very soft on her sunburnt skin.  Her heart races.

_My pulse, dear God!  If I didn’t have a fever before, I surely do now._

“Cassian…”

Their foreheads are touching, and for a moment they’re completely in sync, more even than when they danced; holding one another, breathing one another’s breath.  Then he tilts his head down again, carefully, and she lifts her mouth up to his.  Warm lips, soft, dry to the touch and then not, as she opens hers and lets her tongue dart towards him for a moment.  Lips.  Mouth.  _Your hand in mine, your body close to mine…_

Slow, slow; slowly feeling their way nearer to one another, breath by breath.

They step apart again.  Jyn is on fire.  Cassian’s smile is delirious as he says her name, and he sounds drunk.  Her sun-sore face cracks with joy.  He kissed her, she kissed him…

“Cassian.  Dear heart.  I – oh, my dear.  Goodnight.  Goodnight.” And in a mixture of certainty and incalculable daring that makes her shiver she says “Cariño, buenas noches…”

“Buenas noches.”  His voice is a whisper.

But they’re leaning into one another again, her smile into his, her arms sliding under his and folding right around him this time.  She feels so small beside him; small and cherished, and dizzy with surprise.  He curls one hand to the shape of her skull, supporting, protecting, his fingers in her hair.  She doesn’t want this to end; his heartbeat and hers both drumming, his arms around her, lips parting on hers.  Breathless, a certainty like a laser, every ounce of her being magnified by this new thing…

“I’ve wanted you to do this for so long,” she says in a whisper, when she can speak again.  “Tanto, tanto…”

His grin is goofy with happiness.  “Yo también.”

“Estoy tan feliz.”  Jyn’s heart is dancing inside her. This really happened; she’s leaning back to look up at him, into his beautiful eyes, his happy smile, from within the circle of his arms. “Tan feliz?  Tanto feliz?  Which is it?”

“Yo también.  Tantísimo,” he teases.

Laughter breaks out of her, liberated.  “Oh, you’re not helping at all, dear heart!”

“Dear heart?  Dear heart!  !Corazón querido!  ¿Yo?  ¿Verdad?”

“Si, si, verdad…”  It feels so good, to hold him and be held, both of them laughing now, to feel his ribcage moving, strong in her embrace, and the muscles of his back.  So good, and so happy, to be here.  Jyn leans in, rests her head where she’s wanted to for the last few weeks, safe on his heart.  They stand pressed together, touching at every available surface.

She doesn’t want this to end; it’s been so long since anyone held her, and even longer since it was an embrace she’s wanted this much.  The longer they stand like this, wrapped round one another, the more right it feels and the more she knows she’s been longing to be held like this.  Held, like this, by Cassian.

Well.  Nothing lasts forever.  Love ends, or they leave, or you do.  Nothing stays.  Bliss for a moment, but nothing stays.  Jyn takes a deep breath, registering with a bittersweet pleasure that even his perspiration smells good, not rank but sharp and healthy in her nostrils and _God, I’ve really got it bad_...  She tilts her head back to look up at him.  “I do have to say goodnight, though.”

“I know.  We can’t spend all night in the street.  Or – well, we could, but –“

“I need a shower –“

“And the sidewalk is too hard to sleep on –“

“And we do both have lectures in the morning!”

Yet for all she can say the sensible words, her arms don’t want to do the sensible thing.  Cassian’s lean warmth just feels too good to let go of.

The bells start to ring, eleven o’clock again, three weeks after they first stood hear listening to the hour as it chimed, and the Town Hall with its pretty tune.  Goodnight has to be said.

Instead, she says

“May I kiss you again, please?”

“Oh yes, yes, yes…”

Eleven fifteen has struck before finally they unwind from one another reluctantly and move apart.  Jyn pushes open the street door of the apartment foyer and slips inside, looking back at him.  He’s standing in the street, watching her.  His grin is silly with happiness and he rakes a hand through his hair, tousling it carelessly and then trying to smooth it again.  She has to fight the urge to run back out and do the job for him. 

When she waves, he gives a silent bound of laughter and waves back.

She hovers for a few moments, standing on the staircase, looking at him looking at her.  Both of them smiling, waving, shyly.  She’s shaking slightly inside.  _Parting is such sweet sorrow…_

When she’s let herself into the flat and goes into the kitchen to heat some water for tea, she finds Sabine sitting at the wobbly table there, looking at the tiles on the floor, and Margarina talking to her.  No, more like _at_ her.  She tries to tune the French girl’s voice out; there’s something ugly about her tone, chiding and a bit pushy, as if she’s a loving parent steering a recalcitrant child to wisdom.

But Sabine isn’t a child.  Or hers to steer.

Sabine looks miserable, when Jyn glances her way; eyes averted, shoulders slightly hunched, hands in her lap.  She’s got a plate in front of her on the table, a half-eaten sandwich which she’s no longer touching.  In a lull in Margarina’s monologue she says quietly “No quiero hablar.”

 _I don’t want to talk._   Jyn’s ears prick up.

“Pero, te lo digo –“

“Margarita,” Jyn says, interrupting “puedes dejarla en paz, ¿quizás, no?”

It may not be quite grammatical but at least it gets the French girl’s attention.  “No, Heen, no entiendes – recibió algunas noticias –“

“And what business of ours is that, if she doesn’t want to talk about it?  La dije ya, no quiere hablar.”

“Pero necesita –“

“No quiero hablar,” Sabine repeats flatly.  Quietly, still looking down.  “No contigo.”

There’s a beat of silence, heavy as something out of a Pinter play, and then Margarina’s face changes.  It’s as if she’s never before encountered the idea that someone might not want to talk to her.  Her mouth drops open, slack with surprise, and a faint frown ghosts across her brow.  Jyn watches, fascinated and horrified, while the concept sinks in, and is rejected, and then starts to sink in again.

“Oh,” she says at last.  She looks almost hurt. 

“Lo siento,” Jyn tells her “pero es su asunto y no el nuestro.”  Possibly not the best way to phrase it; but Sabine’s still saying nothing further.

Margarina rallies a little, digs up a small pout from somewhere.  “Vale.  Te entiendo.”

She walks out quite calmly, but her bedroom door closes with a slam.

Jyn sighs and goes to light the gas under her saucepan.  When she turns away from the stove, Sabine is slowly taking another bite from her sandwich.  It looks like banana and jam in the filling.  Comfort food.

Sabine had left the club early; Leia and Han are probably still there, either dancing or bickering; and Hera never seems to want for partners, so she’s probably still dancing too.  Usually Jyn is the first to leave, for her quiet stroll home with Cassian.

It suddenly strikes Jyn that maybe they’ve all been letting the two of them go home together alone.  Perhaps everyone thinks that what happened tonight has been going on for the last three weeks.

The memory of that first clumsy tender kiss is suddenly very bright again in her mind, and “I’ve had a wonderful evening,” she says, apropos of nothing but that sweet, sweet thought.

The gas jet murmurs and the first bubbles are rising in the pan with a faint ticking sound.  Sabine gives a little twitch, like someone stirred out of brooding thoughts; brings up her phone from where she’s been holding it in her lap, and places it on the table.  “Did you?  That’s good.  Your dancing is getting good now, with that handsome boy.”

“Thank you…  Would you like a hot drink?  I’ve boiled more water than I need.”

“That would be good.  Do you have any – ach – lindenblumen?”

“Tilia?  Yeah, I think so…” Jyn pokes in her little cupboard for the brightly-coloured box of lime-flower teabags.  Over her shoulder she says “Cassian.  His name is Cassian.”

“Nice name.  Sounds like a prince in the Thousand and One nights.”

“He kissed me,” Jyn tells her.

“Ah.”  Sabine looks up at her for the first time since she came in; a quick glance with a smile in it.  “So, is that good?” 

“It’s good. It’s very good!  I’ve been trying to hide from myself how much I’ve got a crush on him.  He’s so lovely.  And so interesting.  And just –“ she’s not sure how to explain it.  He’s _Cassian._

“You like him.”

“Very much, yes.”  Jyn sets down two mugs on the table, plonks herself in the second chair.

“We all thought he was kissing you already.”

“Did you indeed?” _Okay…_

“We talked about it two weeks ago.  Leia was so certain.  She owes me twenty Euros.”

 _Wow.  They had bets on us._   “Leia is – good at certainty, isn’t she?  Actually, this is the quickest I’ve ever been to get involved with someone.  I don’t usually let anyone near me, crush or not.  I guess getting to know you lot is having an effect.  It feels – easier to trust, somehow.”

Sabine has picked up her phone again, and Jyn shuts up, self-conscious at chattering on when the other girl is clearly preoccupied.  But the silence isn’t unfriendly.  It’s almost companionable. 

Then

“My mother isn’t coming to visit me.”

Sabine’s voice has gone low and flat again.

Jyn blinks. “But I thought she was coming for Easter.  That’s next week!  She cancelled?  Surely not?”

“Doch ja.  She cancelled.”

“But why?  What happened? – I though you said she was looking forward to it?” _Oh God, please don’t let it be anything medical._ “Is she okay?”

“She is fine.”  Sabine is looking steadily at the phone screen.  “She has decided to work instead.”

“Is it something urgent?  It must be an emergency, no?”

“No.  Nope.  Nada, nichts, zero.  It’s just – more worth her while.”  For an instant Sabine’s clear brown eyes fill with tears and her face contorts; but her voice stays weirdly flat-calm, only a little hoarse from effort, even as suddenly she begins to pour out words.  “It would be so much easier if she just said to me, _Sabine, you are a difficult person to like and I prefer to spend my time with other people_.  But she won’t.  She tells me she loves me, she wants us to have a better relationship, and then she does this.  When I have decided to hope she takes the hope away again.”  She bites her lip as another wave of unhappiness crashes over her features and drains away.  “She says _I_ am the one who is hard to understand.  But _I_ don’t understand _her_.  I wish she would be honest with me.  I am trying _so hard_ but I am a difficult person and she just doesn’t like me.”

Jyn listens quietly.  It’s heart-breaking to see someone who copes so well day-to-day reduced to a near-meltdown by the one person who should have supported her unconditionally.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, after she’s sure Sabine isn’t going on.  “I’m so sorry this has happened, it really stinks.” Is that an appropriate response?  She hopes so.  It is at least honest; because this _does_ stink.  She remembers sitting for the portrait last month, and Sabine’s delight and pride in her work; remembers how happy it made her to have her own so much more basic painting skills praised by her friend.  “I don’t think you’re difficult.  I think you’re pretty bloody amazing.  Your art is fantastic.  I’ve learned so much from watching you work, and from your advice and your ideas.  And you’ve made me feel so welcome here.  I was all ready to shut all the doors when I arrived, just do my courses and hardly speak to anyone.  It was touch and go, the first few weeks, if I’d even stick it out.  Honestly, if your mum thinks you’re difficult she doesn’t really know you.  You’re insanely talented and a really kind person and you cope with problems I can’t even imagine handling.” Is she going on too much?  Is any of that remotely what Sabine needs to hear, or is she just making it worse?  Anxiety bites hard, and “I think you’re cool,” she finishes quickly.  

“I don’t think I’m cool.”

“To borrow your phrase, doch ja.  You bloody are.”

Should she give Sabine a hug, uninvited?  Not everyone likes hugs.

She’s still wondering about it when the German girl puts both arms round her clumsily with a heartfelt “Thank you.”  That answers that question, anyway.  Jyn carefully returns the embrace.

“You’re welcome.  And sorry for babbling about Cassian earlier.”

“It’s okay.  I’m glad you’re happy.”

“I am.  Terribly.”

“Did I piss Margarina, do you think?”

“Yeah, probably.  But she’ll get over it.  Surely she must realise she’s brought this on herself; she hasn’t exactly made an effort to be a good flatmate and this is the result.  Don’t worry about it.”    

**

The University breaks up for just over a week at Easter; Semana Santa itself and the first two days of the week after.  Too short a holiday to go home to London; and what would she go for, anyway?  The appeal of Bromley is decreasing every week.  Here in Spain the last week of March has brought more flowers, the tiny yellow banksia roses and even tinier shell-pink ones like a crumpled dog rose in miniature.  The little park with the view south towards the coast and west to Lanjarón is full of snow-white and Schiaparelli-pink sakuras, dropping petals onto the neat gravel pathways and into the central carpet beds of tulips and double pompom daisies.  Schools have broken up, the number of tourists is increasing and there are strawberries in the market, and asparagus from the coast.

Church bells ring on and off for most of Palm Sunday.  In the street outside Jyn’s window when she opens her shutters, people are coming away from early mass carrying green olive twigs.

Hera is excited.  “I’ve never seen a Catholic Easter.  _Pascha_ at home isn’t for another two weeks so I’m going to miss it, but this is going to be really interesting.  I’ve been reading about all the traditions round here.  It sounds like about ten of our panegyris all happening together; processions and penitents and musicians and incense carriers.  People take the statues from the main churches all around the town.  And one of the cofradias has a traditional procession route that goes right down Calle Fénix; right past our apartment.”  She’s looking it up on her phone as she speaks.  “Look, here’s the map, see?”

A warm smell of baking fills the kitchen.  Sabine is scraping out the mixing bowl and licking the last of the cake mix off her spoon with the focussed determination of a six year old.

“We could sell seats on the balcony,” says Leia.  “Of course, that’s if Margarina hasn’t already.”

Sabine laughs.  “Yeah, to novios números doce, trece and catorce.”

“Novio número doce seems like a nice boy,” Jyn says.  “I feel kind of sorry for him.  What is his name, did any of you manage to get it?”

“José-Antonio, I think.”

“José-Antonio el secundo.” Sabine sniggers.  Novio número cinco was also called José-Antonio.

“But seriously, girls, we should have an Easter party.  Drinks and tapas on the balcony and watch the procession.  It says here that Llavin has one of the most joyful Easters in Andalucía.”

“It’s not a St Patrick’s Day Parade,” Leia says doubtfully.  “Are you sure it’s okay to watch like that? – I mean, it’s a religious thing primarily, right?”

“I didn’t suggest we cheer or play disco music; just watch.  It sounds really spectacular.”

Sabine says without looking up “You should ask your boyfriend.”

Hera stares. “Konstantinos?  But he’s in Thessaloniki!  And anyway he wouldn’t get much out of it, he wouldn’t be able to see anything.  He’s blind.”

The timer on her phone goes off and she gets up to take the cake out of the oven, leaving all three of them momentarily gaping at her back. 

“Whoah.  Any more revelations I should know?” Leia sounds seriously startled. 

“It’s not a revelation. If anyone asked me about Konstantinos I would have told you.  Please can someone find me a – a – a hot-pot plate, stand, thing?  This bake tin is really hot.” 

Leia pulls a wire mesh cooling rack out of one of the drawers.

“Thank you!”  The cake is upturned with a small, doughy thump.  “So, you didn’t expect me to have a boyfriend, but I do.  Leia, we know about your _thing_.  Sabine, have you got a sweetie squirrelled away someplace?”

“My thing?”  Leia starts laughing.  “I like that!  Gonna call him that next time he’s being a nerf-herder.”

Sabine is shaking her head.  “Nope, not me.  I meant Jyn’s boyfriend.”

 _Oh blast_.  “Cassian’s not my boyfriend - at least – we didn’t have that conversation.  We just – ah –“ She hasn’t had a chance to plan how to tell them, _dammit Sabine why_ -

“You necked!” Sabine finishes triumphantly.

Hera’s turn to look confused.  “Neck is a verb?”

“ _Squirrel_ is a verb?” Sabine retorts.

Hera laughs; she turns her tin out carefully and lifts it.  A wonderful perfume of almonds and oranges and a hint of cinnamon fills the room.  “Cake for anyone?” 

**

By the time they are all sitting watching the pentitentes of the brotherhood of Nuestra Señora de las Nieves carry enormous figures of Christ and the Virgin down Calle Fénix at shoulder height, Jyn is used to the idea that she is now, for the first time in several years, a girlfriend; a girlfriend with a boyfriend.  It seems that Cassian feels much the same.  At any rate he’s happy to sit beside her on the balcony, his shoulder against hers, his hand laced through hers, his thumb rubbing gently back and forth at the base of hers.  At one point, as the second brass band of the morning goes slowly and noisily past, he leans over and presses a kiss to her cheek.  It’s Easter Sunday, the sun is hot and they’ve all exchanged chocolate eggs, and everyone has been formally introduced to Cassian. 

Han and Leia were at the far end of the balcony, making small competitive jokes to one another, but then they went inside and Jyn is fairly sure that now they’re busy.  Busy necking.  There really is no better word for it.  Sabine is alternately taking photographs and eating cake; Hera is just watching with a happy smile on her face.  When the last paso swings into view, a tall statue of the Risen Christ draped in crimson brocade and crowned with fresh flowers, holding up an ivory hand in blessing, she stands up, crossing herself and murmuring emotionally “Christos anesti.”

It rings faint, delicate bells in Jyn’s mind.  The group immediately in front of the paso are all carrying huge lit candles, several centimetres in diameter, and at their head walk three young girls swinging censers.  In the bright spring heart the perfume of incense and beeswax is sweetly intense, and strange, and familiar. 

_The last holiday before Mum died, when we went to Athens and Papa took me out of bed at midnight and carried me on his shoulders even though he said I was too heavy for shoulder rides now.  We watched the Easter procession leaving a funny little church in a square below the Acropolis.  There was a full moon and everywhere smelled of incense and candle wax and roses, and lemons, and soup.  Mum had a candle and someone coming out of the church lit it for her from theirs, and everyone was saying that; Christos anesti, Christos anesti; and…_

“Alithos anesti,” she says softly.  The response all those happy people kept giving her parents and one another.

Hera starts as if she’s heard a ghost, and stares.  Then suddenly sits down again. “Yes.  Yes, Jyn, alithos anesti.  Where did you learn that?  Oh, now I want to go home!  And I can’t, not for my Easter!” There are tears in her eyes suddenly and her voice is shaking.  “Malaka, I want to see my family and eat Mayiritsa sopa and have red eggs and kourabeidhes!” 

Jyn grabs her with her free hand, pulls her close.  Homesickness, she knows; homesickness, she’s struggled through; and with a far less happy home than Hera.  It seems a lame thing to say but she murmurs the only thing she can think of; “Shh, I know, I know.”

“It’s so much like a panegyri at home!  Oh dear, what a silly I am being.”

Cassian leans over.  “It’s okay, you’re not being silly.  It’s natural to be homesick, isn’t it?  I sure hope it is.  I still wake up sometimes and look at the ceiling and remember it isn’t my home in Mexico City, and for a moment all I want is to be back there with my family.”

“I still wish sometimes that I was back in Bromley” Jyn adds “and believe me, if you’d ever seen Bromley you’d know, it’s no place to miss!  We’re all fish out of water here.  But there’s so much that’s good about this too, so much that’s really great about being here.”

Jesus is swaying, right in front of them, as the bearers switch over teams.  Sabine leans out, camera clicking as she grabs a string of shots excitedly.  Cassian squeezes Jyn’s hand tightly, lifts it to his lips, presses a silent kiss on her knuckles.  Hera hugs her from the other side, and she’s laughing and crying at the same time now, wiping at her dark eyes, throwing back her two long braids in embarrassment.  Jyn hugs them both back. 

“I’m gonna get some more chocolate,” Hera says with a rueful laugh.  “Chocolate makes everything better, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christos anesti - Christ is risen.  
> Alithos anesti - He is risen indeed.  
> Traditional Greek greetings for Easter Sunday. Apologies for writing them in this alphabet; faced with the choice of trying to find a Greek typeface or transliterating the words, I opted for the latter as I'm guessing that many of my readers wouldn't be able to read the Greek letters.  
> Tinto de verano is a delicious alcoholic drink made by combining equal parts red wine and lemonade or limeade; it's pleasantly semi-sour in taste and very refreshing in hot weather.


	5. Cuando calienta el sol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hera has a visitor, and Cassian's play approaches. And it's hot...

April advances, and gets hotter.  Jyn finishes the second of the three case studies that will form the centre of her dissertation.  Case Study One, the Mozarabic churches of the Alpujarras; Case Study Two, the Alcazabita at Llavin.  For Case Study Three she would like to focus on the Alhambra in Granada.  That will give her a third clearly-differentiated subject – religious architecture, private domestic architecture and finally military fortifications and the architecture of a royal showpiece.

But to do a good, thorough, illustrated section on the Alhambra, she’s going to need to spend a few days in Granada; and a wistful inner voice keeps murmuring that it would be so great if Cassian could come with her.  Just the two of them together; a little holiday, a long weekend, perhaps even (whispers the mischievous voice) a _dirty_ weekend.

Their make-out sessions are prolonged and passionate, and they’ve had plenty of proper dates together as well as their twice-weekly meetings at dance class.  But they haven’t slept together yet.  She hopes it’s _yet_.  Even after overcoming the agonising shyness that held them back from that first kiss, there’s still a whole load of other barriers to surmount.  But she wants him.  She’s pretty sure he wants her (sometimes the evidence is pretty incontrovertible).  It’s just that neither has dared try to move things on any further.

Yet.

And she does want.  Dear God, she does.  She wants him so much that her dreams are fiery with it.  She wakes sometimes and finds herself moving in her bed, physically trying to crush herself more tightly against the mattress, which in her dream was Cassian’s lean body.  It would be comedy – she’s humping her own bedding like a randy dog, for crying out loud - if she weren’t so damned hungry for that dream to be real.  When he touches her sometimes, she knows she going to melt away inside.

His dancing is getting steadily better, and more intense.  At the end of each lesson now, Wednesdays and Saturdays, they generally spend another hour or so at the club, just dancing together.  Dancing, she can grind up against him without embarrassment; dancing, they can twine together, be languorous, be tender, or raunchy as every hot dream Jyn has ever shuddered awake from, blushing and out of breath.

Cassian seems to have a collection of set dance moves, she’s noticed.  It has to be the choreography for the play.  She’s absurdly flattered to think she’s now practically his rehearsal partner.  Wonders if she’ll recognises the sequence of steps and swings and spins when she sees it on stage. 

She offers to hear his lines if he wants any help with them, one stiflingly hot evening walking home after the class (and how strange it is to remember her breath coiling in frosty air, in these same streets, the first time they walked this way).  He groans.  “I have three rehearsals a week already!  I need _some_ time off, or I’ll turn into Javier altogether!”

“No problem.” 

So, does that mean he’s a method actor, even with a part as frivolous as he’s made this sound?  Interesting.  _Javier, the romantic lead…_

She didn’t mean there to be any note in her voice but good-humoured acceptance.  But Cassian starts and looks at her anxiously.  “Do you mind that?”

“No, of course not!  It means the play will be completely new to me when I see it.  That’s good, right?”

“I hope so.” Cassian sounds doubtful, and doubt opens its buds in Jyn in response. 

“Do you still want me to come?”  She’s been really looking forward to seeing it.  But if this isn’t what he wants any more…

“Jyn!  Yes.  I do, I really do.  I wish you could be there every night.  But – it’s just – you know, it’s –“ his voice is desperately awkward, he’s almost forcing himself to say it “ – it’s not a very good play.”

She hugs him.  He sounds so despondent.  “I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare.  Not even Tennessee Williams.  I don’t really mind about the play at all.  Just so long as I can there to support you I’ll be happy.”

“And so will I…  Jyn, listen, there’s – something else I need to tell you.  About the play.  Two things, in fact.  I’m afraid I – I kiss another girl.  I have to kiss her a lot.  A lot of kissing scenes.  It’s kinda embarrassing.”  He’s turned scarlet, is biting his lip like a kid, at having to say this.

Bless him for his honesty.  Well, if she’s equally honest with herself, she’s going to hate watching that.  But Cassian is the leading man and it’s a love story, so it was bound to happen.  “It’s okay,” Jyn says; lightly, to him, and firmly to herself.  “I did guess that might happen.  Honestly, it’s okay.”

“She’s not even my type.  I mean, she’s nice, we get on, but – she’s not the girl I want.”

He looks so awkward and anxious.  She wraps both arms round him, resting her chin on his breastbone so she’s looking straight up at him and he has to tuck his own chin comically to look into her eyes.  “’Course not.  That would be little old me, right?”

It gets her a chuckle, and a grin halfway between possessive and entranced.  “That would be you, yes.” 

She pulls him down for a quick kiss, chuckling.

“And what’s the other thing?  About the play?”

Cassian takes a deep breath.  “It’s not the play.  It’s me.  Oh Jyn.  I’m nervous.  I’m so nervous!  It’s the biggest role I ever had and I’m on stage almost all the time, I have so many lines and so much to do!  And all the dancing –“

“And the kissing,” she adds, trying to lighten his sudden tension.

It doesn’t seem to work.  Cassian pulls a face.  “Yeah…”

She pokes him gently in the ribs.  “Kissing, a thing _which you are very good at_.”

She hopes he doesn’t mind being teased; it’s not as if she has much experience of this kind of thing.  She just wants to see him smile again.  That line at least seems to have worked; he’s cracking a small grin and squeezing her close again.  “Oh yeah?  You think?”

“Oh yeah, I think.  _Very_ good.  And your dancing is so good now, too.  You’ve worked so hard and it really shows.   I’m sure you’re going to be great in the play.  I’m looking forward to it.”

“So – which night do you want to come?”

Somehow he manages to make that simple word sound seven kinds of sensual.  Jyn feels his hands on her back, imagines herself moving rhythmically atop the lean eager body she’s danced with so often; remembers her hot, wild dreams.

_When do I want to **come**?  Tonight and every night, with you and only you; oh, but I can’t say that!_

She’s blushing hard now.  And he’s grinning.  Hell, he knows, surely he does, what his voice and his touch are doing to her.

_Pull yourself together, Erso._

“The first night, maybe?  Or the last?  When would be best for you?  I want to support you, not just see the play!  So what night will you want support the most?”

“First night is the Wednesday, the 25th.  The last night is a Saturday.  So you’d miss class, whichever one you choose.”

Jyn giggles, marvelling slightly as she hears herself; she’s stone cold sober, only a little high from endorphins and amusement.  She never used to be a giggler.  Never used even to know how to flirt.  “So?  You mean more to me than a dance class, you know, mister.  Could I come to both? – would you mind?”

An incandescent smile; both his eyes scrunching up in delight; and their two smiles are mirrors now, brightness reflected without start or end.  He bends to murmur against her lips “I would love it!”

Jyn melts into the kiss, her heart pounding with happiness.

_Now I just need to find a way to get you to Granada and seduce you, when I’ve never done anything of the sort in my life._

**

Mentally, she sets the first weekend of May for her trip.  _Their_ trip, if she can only manage it.

Target in sight; time scale selected.  Cue U2 playing _All I want is you…_

It’s strange; like so much else that has happened this spring, to find herself dreaming of lovemaking and romance is such a shock.  Jyn has never been a romantic.  Never thought of herself as a girlfriend, or as a lover; or as a person _in love_.  Never had these ideas, not even when she’s been seeing someone. 

Not that anyone in the past remotely compares to Cassian.  Not that any time in the past remotely compares to now. 

_Please let this not be an anomaly.  Or worse, an extended holiday romance.  Please let this be me discovering love, and myself._

“Am I odd?” she asks her brother on the ‘phone, the weekend before Cassian’s play.  “I’m beginning to think I might be.”

“Only beginning to?”  She can hear the grin in his voice; but he’s too kind to tease her for long.  “Jyn, don’t be daft.  You’re no odder than anyone else in this rum old world of ours.  What’s brought this on?”

“Oh, well, nothing – just, I guess – I’ve never been in love before.”

“Aww.  A beautiful classic Broadway number.  Which I can sing for you if you like.”

“Oh don’t be a goose, Bodhi.  It’s serious.  I feel as if I’m changing.  Like, a lot.  I’m not the same person who came out here.  It was only February!  But it’s like I‘m finding bits of me I didn’t know about.  Turning into a person I didn’t know existed.”

“I’m sorry, I know I’m being a twit.  But – Jyn, travel is meant to broaden the mind, isn’t it?  So long as you’re happy about it – you are happy about it, right?  Happy about changing?  About love?”

“Happy seems an awfully mild word for it, but yes, I am.  I really am.”  She’s giddy with it, shining inside.  The sun has brought life to more than just the streets and gardens of Llavin.  “Oh Bodhi, I _am_ happy!  It’s mystifying and it scares me.  I’m terrified of how I’ll deal with it when this is over.  But right now?  So, so happy.  So many things I never expected.  Never knew I was missing.  It’s magical.”

**

She plans her Granada trip carefully.  Researches the journey, bus versus train, checks prices on hotels and hostels and looks into advance tickets for the Alhambra and Generalife.  But she can’t arrange anything until she knows if she’s booking for one person, or two.  And the weekend she’s chosen has turned out to be a local festival; Las Cruces.  If she doesn’t finalise her arrangements soon, there won’t be any accommodation left in the city.  She sits staring at the laptop screen and worrying.  If Cassian likes the idea then it will be a treat for him, to celebrate his stage triumph.  She refuses to admit of any possibility other than a triumph for him.  But if he doesn’t like the idea,  or if his play is a flop – or if he suddenly comes on all Catholic and virtuous (surely he won’t? – but religion is one of the things they’ve never really talked about, and just because she barely has one doesn’t mean he’ll be equally agnostic)…  So many things that could sink this tentative plan, send it straight to the sea-bed like the _Mary Rose_. 

Should she book a single room and a cheap bus ticket and forget this whole daydream of  romantic weekend with him?  She’s never done anything like this before. 

However do you tell a man you want a dirty weekend with him?

_Come on, Jyn, it can’t be that hard.  Look at all you’ve done already, that seemed impossibly difficult.  Take courage from the warm spring air; take courage from the dance, from this happiness inside you, take intangible courage into your heart and just ask him.  Just say “I’m going to Granada for Las Cruces and I wondered if you’d like to join me?”_

_Or is that too neutral?  Yeah, underselling to a fault._

_“Do you fancy a sexy weekend in Granada with me sometime?”_

_Too direct.  Putting him on the spot; how can he say no then without being rude?_

_Oh damnation, I’m overthinking this._

_Cut my losses and book for myself, or risk my losses and ask Cassian?  Do what I’ve always done, or do the new thing?_

_Toss a fucking coin for it?_

Jyn slams the laptop shut with a grunt of frustration and pushes it onto her bed.  She’s sitting in shorts and a vest top, sweating in a most unfeminine way, where less than three months ago she curled up huddled in blankets.  It still seems surreal, to have moved from bitterest winter cold to baking summer heat so fast.  She gets up and marches into the kitchen to refill her water bottle.

Straight into a complete stranger.

He’s a good looking guy, that’s for sure, almost as good-looking as Cassian; and like Cassian too in so far as that he is benefiting from this odd current fashion for beards.  She looks him up and down in her surprise, in what’s probably quite a rude way, though he doesn’t give so much as a flicker of offence.  Thirty-something and tall, olive-skinned and dark-haired, with a serious, intelligent face; and large, very brilliant eyes that are blue-green almost to being turquoise.  Not an eye colour Jyn has ever seen before, least of all in what’s otherwise a very Mediterranean colouring, but they don’t have painted-on tone of coloured contacts.  Vibrantly beautiful eyes; yet he looks right through her.

Well, he isn’t all Margarina’s usual type, anyway; this is a mature and seriously handsome man, not one of her Bieber-clones. 

“Hello?” he says.  It’s a warm, deep voice, with an accent that isn’t Spanish.  Hera’s accent, or very close to it.  Can it be? -

“Hi.”  Jyn sticks out a hand cautiously and says her name.

The man puts his own hand out too; apparently responding, except that he’s reaching a good ten centimetres to her left.  “Hello.  I’m Konstantinos Kanaris.”

“Hera’s boyfriend?”  That explains the sightlessness; explains everything.

She touches his hand and Konstantinos wraps his own round hers.  He has a huge smile.  “Yes!  I have come to visit her, for _Pascha,_ for a surprise.  The American woman let me inside your apartment.  I hope I am not in your path?”

“No, not at all, I was only going to get some water.  Hera will be so pleased to see you!  She got quite emotional last week, about the Easter celebrations.  Said it was like a festival at home.  It made her very homesick, I think.”

“Well, I have brought her kourabeidhes and dakos and carob marmalade and Kolymbari olives and rigani and a kilo of yigandhes.  And some chocolate fistikia from the airport shop.  Half of my baggage was food!  So maybe this will help if she misses home.”

He looks, in his handsome, sober way, inordinately chuffed at that list of what she presumes are all Greek foodstuffs. 

When is Hera likely to get in today?  Jyn wants to be there when her friend arrives, to see her face when she walks in on her bloke sitting here.  “How long are you staying in Llavin?”

“Just for _Pascha_.  Then I must go to a conference in Madrid.”   He smiles just past her ear.  “And you, how long are you here for, Jyn?”

“Till the end of next month.”  It suddenly seems a very short time.  Jyn remembers her doubts as she spoke to Bodhi.  The last thing she wants is to face what will happen when she goes back to Bromley.  Yes, it will mean back to Chelsea College of Art, back to a degree course she’s worked her arse off to get a chance to do; but it will also mean back to London grey and crowds, absurd prices, hours on crowded Tube trains, and rain; no fun, no flat full of laughing friends, no evening chats over toast and tea, no dance class; and no Cassian. 

“Your voice has gone sad,” says Konstantinos Kanaris.  “I’m sorry for making you miss your home.”

“Oh no, it’s not that.  I was thinking how much I’m going to miss being here.  I’m so happy in Llavin and I don’t want it to end.”

And here she is again, opening up to him immediately, when once her default response to strangers was mistrust.  But he is Hera’s boyfriend; he’s bound to be a good guy, surely.  She can trust her friend’s judgement.  So what if trust is itself still an oddity for her?  She’s going to keep going with it just the same.

Konstantinos smiles.  “I have learned all of my lessons the hard way,” he says.  His vivid eyes are looking into infinity.  “Never the easy path.  And one of these lessons is that life is very short.  Seize what you love and live it, eh?  Touch it, taste it, every day, look at all the colours, all the beautiful things, and love them.  Before they fade.”

“I don’t want them to fade at all.”

He raises one hand to indicate his eyes. “Nor did I.  But this is my life.  It’s the nature of things to change, it can’t be helped.  Life is ephemeral.  You know how music plays and then ends?  But it’s still beautiful.”

“I must say, this is the most philosophical conversation I’ve had in a while.”

“Well, _philosophia_ is a Greek word, so it’s fitting, I think.  What do you and Hera talk about, then?”

“Oh, all kinds of stuff.  Art, and dancing, and cake.  And our boyfriends!”

“Then it sounds as though you are already loving the beautiful things.”

She laughs, and a moment later it seems to dawn on him that he’s just called himself beautiful.  He blushes scarlet to the roots of his hair and says “I didn’t mean it like that!”

The front door of the apartment slams as they are laughing together; there are footsteps in the passage and Hera’s voice says “What’s so funny, Jyn? – _malakas_!  Konstantinos!  _Pos - alla – agapi mou!”_

She crosses the kitchen in two strides and throws herself into the seated man’s arms.  He pulls her into his lap, tugs affectionately at one of her braids, eagerly returns her kiss.  They’re both smiling like teenagers.

Jyn scoots to the sink to get her water refill.  It seems rude to stay, now that serious motherly Hera is laughing like a kid and chattering nonstop in Greek, scattering kisses on her man’s face.  They look so happy it warms her heart.  But as she slips past them towards the door, Konstantinos raises his head away from the kissing for a moment and turns her way.  “Remember, Jyn, love everything and live it.”

“Yes to that,” Hera says with a grin.  She settles in his arms and snuggles in.  “Go and love your Cassian, girl!”

“I will,” Jyn tells them.

**

All too soon it’s the weekend before Cassian’s play opens.  He’s almost on fire the last few times she’s seen him, his calm so ferociously perfect she can tell it’s from nerves.

His dancing now is good enough that she’s embarrassed to be partnering him.  Cassian deserves a dance partner as quick on her feet, as responsive and graceful as Leia.  Not her.  Jyn’s used to being competent at everything she does, it’s a lifelong habit, trained by years of self-reliance.  But as a dancer she’s no more than passable; cheerfully, clumsily enthusiastic.  Sometimes he twirls her and her feet lose the rhythm, and for a moment she’s almost overwhelmed with her own inadequacy.  She grits her teeth each time, fixes her smile and dances through it, hoping he won’t see from her expression how the inner voice of self-doubt is nagging at her.  Reminds herself that Cassian is with _her_ , and wants to be with her; that he kisses her, dances with her, because he wants to.  No-one is making him. 

He dances with no-one else, unless pushed to it by Han, and even when that happens he always comes straight back to her after one dance.

He doesn’t talk about the play, and she respects that, refuses herself permission to pry.  On Saturday night, he’s unusually quiet.  His goodnight kiss unusually tender.  She worries for him, and ridicules herself for it, and hopes his reluctance to talk is just tension and not a sign of some trouble to come.

She still hasn’t talked to him about Granada.  She mustn’t judge him for perhaps holding back, when she deserves his judgement just as much. 

She almost does ask; at nearly midnight, with her back pressed against the blessedly cool marble of the stationers’ doorway, and the equally delicious heat of Cassian’s body locked tight upon her, pressed on the full length of her body.  His hands are wandering over her skin, his mouth exploring hers slowly and hungrily.  The air in the street is still and hot, and everywhere they touch is sticky and salty with perspiration.  They cling and caress regardless, letting the heat of the night build into their own heat, pressing together.

Between one long kiss and the next Jyn murmurs “I want you, Cassian.  I want you so much.”  And there, it’s slipped out, it’s been said.  Practically as drastic as the infamous Three Little Words she hasn’t spoken to anyone since her parents died.  She holds him by the hips and pulls him close, tilting her own hip girdle towards him. “So much.”

He groans a stifled “Yes” and grinds back, hot against her core; takes her mouth in another plunging, overwhelming kiss.  But he doesn’t answer, beyond that single word of agonised agreement.

 _It’s the play_ , Jyn tells herself.  _He told me he was nervous about it.  It has to be the play bugging him._

She wonders how much longer she’ll be able to ignore the flutters of insecurity inside, each time she has to reassure herself like this.  And the flutters too of her growing desire, each time Cassian kisses her, holds her, touches her.

She extricates herself from his arms as the church clocks begin to strike twelve.  Then hugs him and holds him again at the momentary look of stark panic in his face.  Tomorrow he’s rehearsing all day and then lectures on Monday and Tuesday and rehearsals in the evenings, so this is possibly the last time they see one another until he’s on stage and she’s in the audience, watching him in the dark.  “Call me if you want to meet up or just talk, if you need anything.  Call me?”

“Yeah…”  Cassian’s voice is hoarse.  “I will.  I promise.”

“You’re going to be marvellous,” Jyn reassures him again.  “I know it.”

“I hope so.  I’m gonna do my best.” One last kiss, as gentle as the previous twenty had been passionate.  “I’ll see you at the theatre, then.”

“Goodnight.  Until Wednesday.”

She thinks he won’t call – where would he find the time? his schedule is packed – but he does.  Tuesday afternoon, as she’s coming home from her Intermediate and Improvers Spanish lesson, her phone rings. “Jyn,” he says urgently as soon as she answers.  “I wanna ask you something.  It’s gonna sound weird.  But I have to ask.”

She checks her wrist watch.  He must be on his way to the dress rehearsal.  “Okay,” she says with a sinking feeling.  Is he going to ask her not to come tomorrow after all?

“There’s this British guy on my course, I don’t think you’ve met him but he’s kind of a friend.  Kay.  He’s just told me I’m gonna break one of my legs.”

He sounds thoroughly rattled by the traditional good-luck charm.

“Break a leg?  He beat me to it, then; I was going to text you tomorrow morning.”

“You mean – he’s not joking?  You really do say that in the UK?  Break your leg?  I thought he was being an asshole!  He kinda is, sometimes, he’s got a weird sense of humour.”

Jyn stops in the shade of an orange tree on the corner of Callejón San Diego and Plaza de la Merced.  Poor Cassian, he sounds almost shaky with anxiety.  She mops at a bead of sweat on her upper lip.  Wants to hug him, right across town.  Says as soothingly as she can manage “It’s a traditional way to wish an actor good luck.  Apparently actually saying good luck is very bad luck.  And you’re not meant to quote – ah, I’m not sure if I’m even allowed to say its name to you.  Are you in the theatre right now?”

“No, I’m on the _autobús_ , Jyn what are you talking about?”

“British theatrical traditions,” Jyn says brightly. “You can’t say good luck or whistle, or quote _Macbeth_ , you have to call it The Scottish Play, if you’re in a theatre.  And there’s some Victorian popular song you’re not allowed to sing, but I don’t think anyone knows it anymore anyway.  Don’t you have any odd things like that, any acting traditions in Mexico, things you always say for luck?”

“Shit,” he says.  “Mierda.”

She can hear the bus in the background, engines grumbling in stop-start traffic and voices chattering.  Perhaps she misheard him? “I’m sorry?”

“Shit.  We say _Mierda_ to someone who’s about to go on stage.”

A pause, and he adds with a growing tension in his voice “I better check in case that’s just a Mexican thing.  I might really offend everyone in the cast if it isn’t the tradition here.  Oh my God, I never thought of that…”

“I think French actors say _Merde_.  So you’re probably safe.” She isn’t used to this worried voice.  Cassian is uncertain of himself sometimes, she’s come to see he’s almost as shy as her; but she’s never heard him sound downright unsteady like this.  She wants to wrap her arms round him and hold him tight.  Heat be damned.

“I better check, just the same,” he frets.

“Cassian.  Come over this evening.  After the rehearsal.“ Jyn hadn’t meant to say anything like that; but he sounds so tense and she just wants to help him relax, somehow. “We don’t have to do anything.  Just come and sit with me.  Let me make you some supper.”

She doesn’t mean Netflix and chill, but as the words leave her mouth she realises how suggestive the whole idea sounds.  _Come on over to my place, mister; come up sometime.  Oh God, oh shit…_

“I can’t.” Cassian’s voice sounds almost strangled.  “I want to but – no, no I can’t.  I have to – it’s the last rehearsal and then I have to get – I’m sorry, Jyn, I can’t.”

“Oh.  Okay.” His nerves must be getting to him so much.  She determinedly ignores any suggestion that this might be a rebuff.  He sounds too alarmed for it to be anything but stage fright.  Surely.  Poor Cassian. 

She just wants to hug him even more; but it will have to wait till tomorrow. “I’ll see you at the theatre, then?”

“Yeah. Jyn, I – I’m sorry.  I’m really, really tense and – I hope you like the play – and – I love you – Okay, this is my stop, I gotta go.”

“Bye.”

 _I love you._   It hits her just as the line cuts off.  The three little words.  And she didn’t say them back.

But she feels them.

She’ll say them to him tomorrow evening, when he gets off stage.  When he’s proved himself, and isn’t nervous anymore. 

She’s nervous for him, now.  What if after all he isn’t very good?  What if he forgets his lines, or his dance moves? – what if he just plain _can’t act?_

_No, I won’t let myself think like that.  I’ve proved that ignoring my fears can work for me; now, ignore them for him as well.  Cassian can act, surely he can; and he must be good, else why was he cast at all?_

But then why does he sound so terribly, terribly worried?

Jyn pockets her phone and sets off home down the baking street, in the golden verticals of afternoon sun, with her insides jittering like butterflies. 


	6. Amor mas que amor es el nuestro y te lo vengo a dar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first night of Cassian's play.

By the following evening she’s so buzzed with anxiety (for him, for herself, for what on earth is going on) that her fingertips hurt.  She’s almost glad he hasn’t called or come to see her; she’d be quite incapable of anything more supportive than a panicked fussing. 

If she’d ever had much experience of being jittery on someone else’s behalf, she might handle it better.  But that’s the downside, she’s starting to realise, of protecting yourself by never getting really close to people.  When you do decide to make friends, let down your guard, fall in love, suddenly there you are in your early twenties with the emotional skills of an eight year old.  Cassian is probably better off away from her right now, where he can focus on the job in hand and not be distracted by her interpersonal fumbling.

The job in hand; very much in hand now, inescapably so.  She’s standing on the corner of Plaza de la Revolución, looking up at the façade of the Teatro Estrellita and quaking inside.  The opening performance of “Noches en La Habana” begins in less than half an hour. 

She’d assumed they’d be playing in a lecture hall, or perhaps the Music Faculty’s Sala de Conciertos; but it’s a real theatre.  Mid-nineteenth century, by the looks of it, and quite small, but the real deal.  In front of her in the glass-fronted case outside the entrance is a striking poster; silhouetted dancing figures against a blurred montage of half-tone photographs of a crowd carrying revolutionary banners.

La Asociación dramática de la Universidad de Llavin presenta

Noches en La Habana

Una obra de Montserrat Mozmar

Adaptado de la película de Guy Ferland

Dirigido por Montserrat Mozmar

_Okay.  Oh boy.  Good luck,, Cassian, dear heart.  Break a leg._ _Mierda, mierda, mierda.  I know you can do it._

She brings up the e-ticket on her phone screen; people are starting to go into the foyer.  Jyn squares her shoulders like someone facing an exam, and follows them inside.

The whole apartment (plus Han – and Chuy, bless him – and minus only La Margarina) are coming on Saturday.  But for tonight it’s just her, here to back Cassian up, on her own.  Out on a limb.

Just thinking about it is enough to set the chaffing inner voice off again, worrying at her mind; surely he’ll be okay, what if he isn’t, he’s practised his dance moves hundreds of times, surely he’ll be okay, what if he fluffs his lines… 

Oh shut up, brain.  Get a grip, Erso.  Cassian will be fine.

The auditorium is beautiful; and stiflingly hot.  Far too old to have air-conditioning, and too historic to have it installed.  A Wedgwood-blue dome is decorated with cherubs and rose garlands, and there are more roses in painted plaster work coiling down the pillars of two tiers of ornate boxes.  When Jyn reaches her seat in the stalls, she sees there’s even a carved rose on the top of the head-rest, above the worn blue velvet padding.  There’s a slight rake to the seating, which curves out in a horseshoe from a gilt proscenium arch, an orchestra pit, a sweep of blue-and-gold curtains.  It’s all velvet and curlicues, ridiculously pretty.  Jyn could be sitting inside a circular chocolate box.

The lights are still up, although most of the seats are occupied now.  It’s nearly a full house.  Is that better for the actors, or more worrying, to have a good audience for the first night?  Cassian will be backstage right now, waiting to begin.  Is he in the wings, is he peeking out to see how good a house they’ve got?  Is he feeling as sick as her, is he running over his words or his moves, are his palms sweating now? 

She feels slightly queasy just thinking about it.  He sounded so nervous, the last time they spoke; sick with nerves, so that she’s sick remembering it. 

But maybe he’s calm now the hour is upon him, buoyed up on adrenalin…

_Don’t let him forget his lines, don’t let him tangle his feet or miss a cue._

_He’s going to be fine.  He’s going to be great._

_Oh God, I hope he’s okay._

The house lights dim to black and in the darkness the curtains sweep open.  A welcome breath of moving air wafts out from them.  Then soft stage lights begin to glow, framing a line of silhouettes against a sky-blue backcloth, dancers and musicians frozen in a tableau; and music strikes up.  Live music, by the sound of it, and yes, when she looks she can see that the band onstage are really playing.  Suddenly the scene is full of dancing as the figures begin to move.  They sway and twirl and sashay; then a bright follow-spot comes up downstage on a lone figure; a blonde-haired girl, classically pretty and statuesque, looking wistfully back at the dancers.  As the upstage lights start to soften and dim she turns to face front, and begins a soliloquy. 

It’s a good opening, setting the scene, establishing the narrator alone in a new land, looking out at a beauty she doesn’t know how to join, wondering if perhaps she’ll begin to find herself, in the excitement and dread and confusion of a strange place.  Jyn can feel a good deal of sympathy for that, anyway.  And at the very least, the opening had great visuals.  If it goes on being this good to look at – well, at least that way the show won’t be a complete dud.  It’s reassuring, in a way.

Scene follows scene, each one running into the next quickly, introducing the heroine’s parents, her sister, her schoolmates.  The set is minimal enough that things can move on fast, without delays to shift scenery.  The actors carry their own props and furniture, lighting and video effects create most of the setting and atmosphere, with a mixture of recorded sounds and soft offstage music.  With Cassian still not in sight Jyn gradually relaxes into simply watching the performance.  She can tell some of the dialogue is cheesy even in Spanish, and one of the young actresses is decidedly wooden, but it’s certainly visually clever.  A simple lighting change, and there’s the impression of sun glinting on water and refracting in ripples all around.  The school-friends bicker round a swimming pool while a waiter darts across the stage behind them, carrying a tray of empty glasses from a poolside table; skinny, head down, a figure so negligible she wonders why he’s even here.  Until he turns, and -

_Holy shit.  Holy **shit.**_

Impossible not to stare.  Impossible not to gawp.  Her mouth is hanging right open. 

Clean shaven, Cassian looks about nineteen.  He’s taken off his moustache and beard completely; and his hair, his lovely tuggable collar-length hair, has been trimmed into a classic fifties cut, short-in-back, long-on-top.  She wonders whether it’s just the haircut and the clean upper lip, or whether a good make-up job is helping him look so terribly young.  Young and peaky, and angry, and hungry. 

She’s so busy gaping that she misses a chunk of dialogue; and suddenly he’s back on stage, and speaking.  Even his voice sounds younger.  It’s really too unnerving for words.

He’s completely transformed himself.  It’s more than the hair.  Much, much more.

_That’s my boyfriend._

He’s good.  He’s _really_ good.

_Oh, thank God._

_Mind you, I feel like a cradle-snatcher now, looking at him, this pretty boy, even though I know he’s four years older than me.  He looks like such a kid; moves like it, sounds like it, glares like it and smiles like it.  Oh My God, that’s Cassian…_

_He’s terrific._

She’s almost adjusted to the fact of Cassian on stage, Cassian a convincing actor (and how stupid her panic seems now, watching him) when his first dancing scene comes up, and suddenly he’s centre stage.  She stares as he leaps on the beat, grinning mischievously and gyrating his hips in a pair of remarkably tight vintage trousers.  Looking really good, so good that Jyn loses a bit more of the plot as her mind turns into a happy blank for a few minutes.  Cassian’s hips, Cassian’s arse, Cassian giggling and thrusting his pelvis, Cassian flapping his hands, snapping his fingers; her mouth is hanging open again, _come on, Erso, easy does it, you’re a grown-up, you can handle this_ …

And that’s how it goes on, from scene to scene.  She can't take her eyes off him; loses whole chunks of the plot from staring at his backside.  His character keeps breaking into dancing, all the way through the story; he’s like some Cuban Disney hero, and he’s so skinny and cute in his thin white shirt, and _fuck, you could sharpen a knife on those cheekbones, you could seduce a saint with that smile and those puppy-dog eyes._   _That’s my boyfriend; and he’s terrific; and he’s gorgeous; and I think I’m delirious, this is so sexy and so, so weird._

He was right about one thing, though.  The script itself isn’t terribly good.  The dialogue is laboured, and so earnest that even as a non-native Spanish speaker she can tell it sounds like nothing anyone would ever really say.  The love story plot is cheesily romantic, the story of the Suarez brothers is clumsy and the whole thing seems a bit disjointed, as if two different stories have been cobbled together, both of them more than a bit corny.

_Okay, no matter.  He warned me it wasn’t a great play.  But it looks good, the lighting designer has done a sterling job and the costumes are good, and I can only thank whoever put Cassian in some of those shirts, and the figure-hugging trousers - Oh My God here’s the first pair again they’re so tight how does he even move in them honestly his arse should be illegal…_

It’s silly, but she’s been to worse.  Cassian is clearly completely at home on stage, no sign of his nerves of a few days ago.  By the interval, she’s mildly entertained by the muddled plot and enjoying the visuals.  The dance sequences are fun, the dancers are good and the little onstage band are playing their socks off.  The music is a delight, the actress playing “Katie” is okay, the parents are both good and Cassian –

Cassian is tremendous.

She shuffles into the broiling-hot bar, buys a bottle of soda water and downs it quickly, stares around for anyone she knows and is half sad and half relieved to recognise nobody.

And back to her seat, the worn blue velvet and the faded painted rose.  Really, even the theatre itself adds to the atmosphere of Cuban charm.  And as the curtains part for Act Two, there’s Cassian, centre-stage, all puppy-dog eyes and intensity, teaching the heroine how to let herself go and discover her inner dancer.

By the end, Jyn’s set aside any cynicism about the clunky script and accepted the play for what it is.  The dancing is good and the staging beautiful, and the story is unremittingly daft, and the dialogue inescapably wooden.  It isn’t very good, but it’s fun, and there’s a place in the world for fun.  The sky-blue backdrop returns and the lovers dance one last time, slowly vanishing into a celebrating crowd.  There are banners lifted high in the background and the music and singing rise joyfully.  The scene goes to a tableau of silhouettes against the sky, the revolution and the dancers moving together as the last beats of music fade; the lighting dims to black, and it’s over. 

The audience applauding, the cast taking their bows.  Cassian, looking more than ever like a kid, is beaming and bowing  and running a hand through his sweaty hair.  And that’s it, the first night, finished.  His eyes search along her row and land on her, and his smile goes bashful for a moment and then huge as she beams back at him and pounds her hands together.  The musicians bow, then the woman with the chestnut bob who she saw on her first day here comes out from the wings and takes a bow, and all the cast applaud her. 

 _So **that’s** Professor Mozmar..._  

The applause goes on a good, solid length of time, the actors bowing and bowing, grinning, shuffling their feet.  Finally “Katie” leads them offstage, and the noise tapers off.  And now that’s really it. 

Jyn gets up from her seat and shuffles out of the theatre with the rest of the crowd, into a night that feels blessedly cool after the auditorium; and hurries to look for the stage door. 

The passageway inside is packed with people and echoing with noise.  She shrinks inwardly, glares outwardly; squares her shoulders and pushes into the jam of bodies.  Half the cast are here, milling about, talking to friends and family.  Cassian is somewhere in here and she’s going to find him.  She can hear his voice; he’s laughing, yes, surely that’s Cassian?  He sounds so happy and excited, and he’s pretty close by.  But it seems as though everyone else in the corridor is taller than Jyn.  She peers past sweaty backs and broad shoulders; someone swings their lacquered 1950’s hair her way and she dodges just in time to avoid being slapped across the face by the heavy locks. 

The corridor reeks of perspiration and hairspray, lipstick and alcohol, and, mysteriously, of popcorn.  The lights are very bright and everyone seems slightly hysterical, actors and audience alike shouting with elation.

In front of her an enormously tall black man with cropped hair is blocking the passage completely.

Jyn pushes his back and is ignored.  She’s hot with tension in this crowded space and goddammit, she just wants to find Cassian; and as she takes in a breath to shout “¡Por favor!” at the oblivious giant in front of her, someone treads on the back of her ankle.  Instead of grumpy politeness she yelps in pain, shouts “Ow fuck!” instead, and stumbles forward, smack into the stranger.

He whips round, uncannily fast, and grabs her.  Peers down owlishly through a pair of John Lennon specs.  Now he’s so close she can tell he must be at least 6 foot 4.  “¿Está bien usted?” he says in a tone of almost scientific curiosity.

“Yeah.  Si.  Estoy perfectamente bien, fuck it.”

“Well you didn’t sound it.”  The little round spectacle lenses glint as he puts his head on one side.  “You swore,” he adds, as if she needs reminding.

“Well, some git trod on me.” 

“Jyn?” comes Cassian’s voice from nearby.  “Is that you?”

“I’m right here!  Next to the big chap!”  She thrusts an arm in the air and waves hopefully.

“Oh,” says the giant “are you Jyn?”  He looks over his shoulder.  Says almost insinuatingly “You didn’t tell me she was so small, Cassian.”

“Everyone’s small to you.” Cassian’s voice is half affectionate and half exasperated. “Please will you get out of the way, Kay, you’re blocking everyone and I –“

The giant sidesteps neatly and presses himself up against the wall, and she’s facing Cassian.

Clean-shaven, baby-faced Cassian.  Close to, he looks even more of a sweet kid.  His cheeks are almost chubby now she sees them without any shadow of a beard. 

He bites his lip and then the outer corners of his mouth curl up in a sheepish smile.  “Hi.”

“You were wonderful.” Crap, she sounds breathless.  _‘Cause I’m absolutely not a demented fan, who is totally not stalking you, you pretty, pretty man._

“Really?”  His voice has gone up half an octave.  “You’re not just saying it to make me feel okay about –“

_I can do this.  He’s my boyfriend, I’m allowed to do this.  Aren’t I?_

“I want to hug you but there isn’t really room”  _Urgh, that’s a lousy side-step, but_ – “You were so good!  Cassian, you’re such a terrific actor, I had no idea!  And your dancing was wonderful too.  You’d better watch out you don’t get cast in a musical next!”  She squeezes past the giant Kay, holds out her arms.  “I’m so proud of you!”

“You are?  It was okay?”

“Well, look, okay, uhhh – the play is – uh – not so great – but –“

“The script is very weak,” says the giant.  He sounds kindly, even solicitous. “You were quite right to be concerned.  But that only makes it the more admirable that you gave such a committed performance.”

“Kay!”  Cassian flushes with embarrassment; tipping his head back to look up he hisses “Will you shut the fuck up?  This is _not_ the place!  And can I please just talk to Jyn without – without – you know –“

”Do you want me to go home, Cassian?”

They both say it simultaneously, she and Kay.  Fuuuck, embarrassing muchly.  The giant stares down at her and she sticks her chin out at him and returns the stare.  Who the hell is this enormous and surprisingly British-sounding bloke anyway? 

Cassian pushes sweaty hair off his forehead. “Yes, please, Kay.  Not you, Jyn.  Please.  I just wanna – ¡ay dios mío que mierda! –“

Jyn sticks out a hand at Kay.  “I’m Jyn Erso, I’m Cassian’s girlfriend, hi.  I just want to take him home and tell him how wonderful he was in this play.  Think you could see your way to helping us get out of here so we can skedaddle?”

“Sked-laddil?” says Cassian, staring at her and smiling confusedly. “Now that’s a word I don’t know.”

She pushes up close and wraps her arms round his waist. “Come home with me, you wonderful brilliant actor, you.”

“I’ll get the door for you,” the giant says, good-humoured and not budging. “I’m Kay Esso, by the way.  No petrol station jokes, please.  I’m Cassian’s flatmate and I’ve heard _all_ about you.”

“Except for me being short, eh?”

“I didn’t see the need to mention it.”  Cassian is holding her, under the benignly uninterested gaze of his room-mate.  He smiles at her.  He’s still in costume, still sweaty from coming off stage, and he looks good enough to eat.  To be eaten by.  To eat your dinner off.  All of it, every cliché and daft idea known.  He looks _good._

“Get out of that costume shirt and get your own clothes on, and come walk me home,” she says. “I’ve got something for you.”  Restrains the urge to give an over-emphatic wink.  _Come on.  Get the message.  I’ve got something for you, Cassian.  Hint hint._

He still sounds a little out of breath. “Jyn – Jyn, I have to ask you – my – is this okay?  My – the beard, my face, is it okay?  I know it looks weird but –“

“Oh, you sweetheart, you absolute sweetheart.”  He’s really worried about what she’ll think of him without his facial hair. “It’s fine.  Okay, so I nearly had a heart-attack when you first came on, but truly, you look fine.  You look _fine_. Don’t worry about it.  Is this what you were worried about, when you wouldn’t come over, a few days ago? - me seeing you clean-shaven?”

“Yes, it is,” Kay tells her. “He thought you wouldn’t like it.  It’s a very dated look.”

“Idiot.  Darling, brilliant idiot.  Of course I don’t mind.  You’re too cute for words.”  She reaches up and pulls him down to kiss.  He’s grinning, a little sheepish but glad to be kissed and ready to kiss her back.  They hang on one another, laughing gently, a bubble of happiness in the noisy crowd, with his huge flatmate standing over them like a bodyguard.

“Come back to the apartment with me,” she murmurs. “You were wonderful and I’ve – I’ve got something for you.  Something I want to give you.  Something to try…”

It might even be nicer with him clean-shaven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's waited for this chapter, I know it's been a long time coming!


	7. Ven devórame otra vez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the night before is a very happy place to be...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although not too explicit, this chapter is distinctly more NSFW than the preceding ones. Finally, eh?!

The head resting against her side is hot and heavy, and his arm is heavy, flung across her midriff.  She strokes his silky hair and smiles at the little grunt of pleasure Cassian gives in the back of his throat.

“Está bien…” she murmurs.

He shifts and places a kiss on her tummy, then lifts his head.  “You can call me _tu_ , you know,” he says, grinning softly. “After all, we did just –“ He sweeps his hand down across her body and giggles as she squirms under him. “Pero si, estoy bien, muy bien.”

“Ahh – oh, please – did I say that wrong?  I did, didn’t I?  I was trying to say _This is good_.  But my brain is all fuzzy at the moment.  Happy-fuzzy.”

“Yeah.  Mine too.” Another kiss, his breath warm on her warm skin in the gentle dawn light.   His hand stroking her, back and forth on her abdomen, fingers tickling down, teasing, tender. “Y tú, ¿estás bien?”

“Muy bien,” Jyn says, laughing. “Hell, yes.  This is – mmm.  Bien.  Bueno.  ¿Buenísimo?” There should be more words, better words, and she knows there are, but her vocabulary has vanished in a blur of post-coital happiness. “Fantástico. Bellissime.  No, that’s Italian, isn’t it?  Delicioso.”

“¿Yo, delicioso?  Tu también.”

They’re both giggling now, and he’s kissing back across her stomach, little butterfly kisses, up to her ribcage then back past her navel, and on down.  Jyn pushes herself up onto her elbows and he looks up at her under his lashes.  From between her thighs.  His eyes are sparkling with delight.

“You really are, you know,” he says. “Delicious.”

It’s a husky whisper, full of temptation, and Jyn exhales in helpless pleasure as he nuzzles closer, probing with his tongue while his fingers glide up her thigh slowly.

She’s a mess already, sticky with sweat and pleasure, her own mouth tart and salt with the taste of him.  Hours of lovemaking, through the darkness and into the morning.  Utterly physical, blissfully abandoned in her body.  It can’t get any better than this, can it?  But Cassian’s eyes slide shut sensuously as he tastes her, and then open, wicked and joyful, watching her.  Those impossibly long lashes; and _Your eyes are an occasion to sin_ , she thinks.  She’s caught, hooked on that beauty, electrified by the thrill of his touch.  It’s impossible to look away; daylight makes a new experience, a new pleasure, now that she can watch him.  His dark head moving, his hands glimpsed, stroking her, then lifting one of her legs onto his shoulder, catching her eye again before he buries his face between her legs once more with a hum of satisfaction.  Jyn lies rocking her hips against him, curling her hand into his hair, sighing wordlessly as he licks her out slowly, with murmurs of relish. 

She’s lost count of the number of times they’ve made one another come, as they explored and savoured and learned one another.  And now again, _oh god oh heaven ohhhh_ … a galaxy of stars burns white across her mind and she falls back again onto the pillow moaning with pleasure. 

Cassian crawls back up the bed with the grin of a man who is very pleased with himself and everything in his life right now.  He flops on his flank beside her, nuzzling her shoulder, whispering her name. “Oh Jyn, I love you so much…” 

She can feel him semi-hard again against her leg; she moves a sleepy hand to cup him and stroke, feeling hot bare skin, feeling him harden, thicken, throb under her touch.  He gasps. “Jyn, Jyn – ¡ah, Cristo! – I’m not wearing a condom anymore oh God Jyn if you touch me I’m just gonna –“

“Go on, then.  Let yourself go.”

“Jyn, I –“

“Come for me again, mi amor.”

She loves Cassian’s orgasm-face deliriously, the way he catches a sharp inhalation and scrunches his eyes tight shut, as though trying to hold off something fearful, the way his nostrils flutter and his jaw tightens, every muscle on his wiry body goes still for a moment, his face rigid with inexpressible shock and then suddenly soft in release.   The way his mouth falls open, the helpless moan of a long exhalation.  Even his hair is quivering as he shudders against her, coming apart messily and finally, whimpering as the last pulse of ecstasy passes through him.

And now they are both even stickier; and the bed has been quite comprehensively wrecked.

It’s comical to remember lying alone and miserably cold in this room, in this same bed.  Bundling the covers around herself, huddling up in a ball.  It had seemed like a weirdly sadistic choice , to provide a double bed, back then when it just meant more acres of ice-cold sheets on either side of her miserable single body. 

Most of the bedcovers are folded and put away in the wardrobe now, only those same cotton sheets  left tonight, and it isn’t a cold bed now, or a miserable one.  It’s a happy bed, her favourite bed in the world.  Hot, sweaty and rumpled, swooningly perfumed with sex. 

And how glorious to know at last what people mean, when they say _I cannot get enough of you_.  Past lovers hadn’t been actively bad, she thinks, but _Cassian_ ; Cassian is irresistible, each time they touch she just wants more, and more, more…

Morning is filtering round the shutters, they can’t pretend much longer that it isn’t here.  There’s a first bright oblique of sunlight on the far wall above the desk, the sound of hurrying footsteps on the pavement outside.  Cassian is back in his old place tucked against her side, one arm wrapped round her and his breath soft on her skin.  Breath that makes a faint, innocent sound in his nostrils, like the tiny snore of a cat.

_Did we get any sleep at all?  I should probably let him sleep now._

He still looks like a boy barely out of his teens, even now, filthy with sweat and sex, face sticky and hair tangled on end.  He’s fast asleep, a small secret smile on his face.  Probably mirrored on her own.  What a night, what a crazy, happy, funny, sexy night…

_I ought to try and get some sleep myself, for that matter.  It’s Thursday, I don’t have a class till the afternoon.  And Cassian – come on, he had a theatrical triumph last night, surely they’ll cut him some slack the morning after?  Let him have a lie-in._

She spreads out her aching, satisfied limbs and turns her head towards her lover.  It may not be possible to sleep anyway, with a sight this lovely in front of her. 

She closes her eyes anyway.  Each time she opens them, he’s still there, close, soft, sleeping the sleep of the happy.  Close her eyes, open them to look on love, let them close again.  Sleep…

**

When Jyn wakes again the room is flooded with light.  Both  the shutters and the blinds are wide open.  Fresh air is pouring in, and sunlight, and there’s a smell of coffee. 

She jolts, looking round, in a panic; Cassian’s got up, he’s left, she’s alone?  No, please no…

No.  He’s still at her side; dressed in his boxers and lying propped on one flank, contemplating her with sleepy eyes.  On the desk behind him sit Sabine’s Moka Express and a couple of mugs.

The air smells sweet-sharp, the perfume of coffee and musk of sex mixing deliciously.

“Good morning.  Oh, my God, did you make us coffee?”

“I found the pot on a shelf and I may have stolen some ground coffee from the refrigerator.”

“You’re an angel and yes, you did steal it, but I’ll replace it for Sabine.  God, I love you so much.”

“Because I made coffee?”

“Because I love you.”

“You love me because you love me?  Jyn, that is a circular argument.” He’s grinning, all mischief and eye-crinkles.

“And I am all in circles over you.” Which is an idiotic thing to say and doesn’t even make sense.  But God, she loves him, she loves him, so much it hurts. 

Cassian reaches for her, walking two fingers across the sheet and up her bare arm. “Now I’m gonna look for circles on you.”

“What are you talking about?  Ah.  Mmm.” He’s bringing his hand round, down to her waist; leaning over her, pressing kisses on her skin, slowly circling round her left nipple with his lips.  His mouth is hot and she can smell the coffee on his tongue. “Ooh, don’t stop.”

“So delicious…”  Cassian trails his mouth down her body again.  Little puffs of breath as he chuckles into her skin.  His hands holding her by the hips now, fingertips caressing, thumbs rubbing little spirals over the crest of each hipbone.

He shifts his weight, pressing her into the bed, and her stomach rumbles.  It’s a good loud rumble, too, positively defiant in the face of being teased, and they both begin to laugh.  Jyn runs her hand through his unfamiliarly-short hair and tugs, and he comes up, grinning at her.

“I need a shower and breakfast.”

“Yeah, I know.  Me too.  I just don’t wanna – Jyn, you are so beautiful and gorgeous and delicious and – I don’t wanna let go.”

“Yeah, oh God yes.  You know I feel the same.  I don’t want last night to be over.  But – oh God –“ as her belly rumbles again, even louder - “it’s not going to work if we don’t eat.  I mean, eat food.” Cassian has collapsed with his head on her tummy, laughing. “Ah, come on, sweetheart, I want some of that coffee.  Toast!  Marmalade!  Cereal, yoghurt, I dunno, eggs or something, what’s your favourite breakfast?”

She pulls herself upright and tugs him into a sitting position beside her; wraps her arms round his neck.  “We both need to replenish our energy levels, don’t you think?  Build up our strength for the afternoon?”

“Okay.” A long, smiling kiss. “Okay, yeah, you have a point.  I can’t make love to you if you’re fainting from hunger!”

“Not fainting, you goof.  Just gurgling.  And, face it, maybe a shower? - we are both, uh, kind of messy.”

“But it was fun getting that way, no?” Another kiss, and another, and arms twining, breath quickening, hands exploring again... 

She could very easily forget breakfast; who needs to eat after all, when you have skin pressed to skin and a sweet, coffee-scented mouth kissing you tenderly?  But ah, that empty place in her guts is just going to get more talkative and “I need to eat,” she whispers in the large – oh, so sweetly large – and rather pink ear.  This vintage haircut really doesn’t give his ears the camouflage they normally have.  _Oh my darling, I love even your huge ears_.

“I love you so much,” Jyn says.  Can she ever stop saying it?  “I love you, I love you, oh, my God, so much.”

And Cassian draws back, breathing fast and light, his face suddenly serious.  Against her ribs there’s a tremor in his hands for a second.  He blinks slowly and his eyes have gone shy, his voice low. “And – I love you.”

They hold one another again, silently, until a sparrow chirrups outside and Jyn’s stomach rumbles again as if in reply.  Cassian kisses her neck. “OK, vale, breakfast.”

In the end, breakfast isn’t for almost half an hour.  It takes time to shower two people in a one-person shower cubicle; happy time, giggling and splashing and tickling one another, skidding and sniggering, and then gently shampooing and stroking and rinsing, and kissing under the cool, sweet water.  They dress quickly, clean clothes on damp skin, wet hair dripping down their necks.  It feels glorious to be clean and fresh together.  Their hands sneak together at every opportunity, arms slide round one another’s waists, Jyn pats his backside and he kisses her neck.

Breakfast, breakfast breakfast! “Fuck, I’m so hungry!”  She’s frying eggs and bacon while he monitors the grill and flips out slices of toast onto a plate.  Breakfast!

They’re still eating – Cassian having turned out to be just as greedily hungry as her, for all his jokes about Jyn wilting and fading away – when Sabine walks in and says “Oh, hi, Cassian” casually. “I like your new haircut.  Is something wrong?” She rummages in her cupboard and emerges ripping open a choc-chip protein bar.

“No-no…”

“Oh.  Okay.  Then why are you blushing?”

“Am I?” says Cassian innocently.  His ears are crimson.  A wash of sympathetic heat passes down Jyn’s face and across her bosom. 

“Like a tomato, yes.  Did you do something you shouldn’t?”

“Ah, I hope not?” says Cassian at the same time as Jyn says “No, he certainly didn’t!”

Sabine picks up the Moka Express pot with a raised eyebrow. “Okay, if you say so.  Just remember, you don’t wash my coffee pot, yeah?  Leave it for me, I don’t want anyone putting soap in it, okay?”

“No soap.”

“Good.” Sabine wanders out, folding back the foil on her snack.  Over her shoulder she calls back “I hope you slept well.  When you finally got to sleep.”

For a moment Jyn can’t meet Cassian’s eye; will he be able to bear the embarrassment of this?  Will she?  Sabine heard them, by the sounds of it _overheard_ them; maybe overheard _a lot_.  Sabine, who has no filters and a decidedly quirky idea of what it’s okay to say in public, is now marching down the passage munching her breakfast bar, and will in all likelihood tell Hera and Leia before lunchtime (although, please, Lord, not Margarine-girl). 

But when she does look up, quickly, bracing to glance away again before she makes things worse, he is grinning like an imp, though his ears are still blush-red as roses, and he catches her eye and giggles.  “Oops,” he says, enunciating the ooo with his lips pushed out.

“She’ll be okay about it,” Jyn says determinedly.  After all, why shouldn’t she sleep with her boyfriend?  They’re both grown adults.  It’s not as if they were screaming last night (she thinks.  She hopes.  She’s pretty sure…).  Margarina sleeps with every pouting boy she can lay hands on, if it weren’t for her apparent dislike of anything resembling facial bone structure in a man she would probably have made a pass at Cassian by now.  Konstantinos stayed the night; stayed several nights, in fact; and Leia has stayed out all night more than once, which probably means she’s stayed the night, and it’s not too hard to guess where.

They are all adults in this flat and adults are allowed to have sex.  And that’s all there is to it.  No call at all to feel awkward.

“We won’t wash the coffee pot,” she says.

And Cassian starts to snigger.  His face turns slowly more red and he covers it with his hands; his shoulders are shaking.  Jyn gets up from her seat and leans over, pats his hands away from his face. “What?  _What_?” His giggles snort into outright laughter and he gulps in a breath and says “¡Que estupendo eufemismo nuevo!”

“Huh?  ¿Que?  What? –“ and it hits her.  Que estupendo eufemismo nuevo indeed; oh good grief, that is hilarious.  We're going to wash the coffeepot; vamos a lavar la cafetera.  Wow.

They are still hugging one another and laughing a few minutes later when Marguerite comes to the kitchen door and stops, arms akimbo and a look of irritated confusion on her face.

“¿Que pasa?” she asks. “¿Cuál es el chiste?”

“No chiste,” Jyn says. “Todo serio.  Muy serio.”

She pulls Cassian towards the door, so that Margarine-girl has to step back and let them out.

“Pero ¿qué pasa, Heen?  ¿Hay algún broma?”

“Hemos lavado la cafetera,” Cassian tells her.

“Y vamos a lavarla otra vez.”

As they stumble back into her bedroom and shut the door, she can hear the Frenchwoman saying crossly “Pero no la han lavado, aquí esta, todavía sucia.”

And then Cassian is holding her from behind by the hips, and rubbing against her sensuously as they dance round her room, crooning  in her ear “Gonna wash your coffeepot, all night, all day, will you wash my coffeepot today and tonight?  Oh baby, ay baby, ayyy mi amor…”

She turns in his arms and pulls his laughing mouth down again for a kiss.

It’s late afternoon when she finally lets him go.  He has to be back at the theatre by eight to get into costume, but as well as a fair amount more love-making, and cuddling, and making out, they have also managed to catch up on their sleep over the course of the day.  Cassian sets off to the Plaza de la Revolución and another night at the Teatro Estrellita with the broad, relaxed grin of a happy man.  A man satisfied, fulfilled and refreshed, and ever-so-slightly incredulous at his good fortune.

Jyn flops into her desk seat with, she’s pretty sure, much the same expression on her own face.  Twists round to blink at the mirror on the bookcase; yes, that is a stupidly happy smile alright.  A smile like a song.  Like one of Bodhi’s beloved Broadway classics…

_He’s my fella and I love him, that’s all there is to say…  And we’re gonna wash that - coffeepot – right outa my hair?_

_Maybe not.  Oh Cassian, Cassian, my Cassian.  Ay, mi amor._

The play was a success, her lover loves her back, he is really remarkably good in bed and it seems that this time, suddenly, so is she, with the right man and enough time, and the chance to relax, let go her shyness, learn his body (ooh, his sweet body) and let him learn hers; and she has never, ever, ever been so in love before.

And they’re going to Granada next weekend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¿Cuál es el chiste? - What's the joke?  
> Hemos lavado la cafetera. - Y vamos a lavarla otra vez. - We've washed the coffeepot - And we're going to wash it again.  
> Pero no la han lavado, aquí esta, todavía sucia. - But you haven't washed it, here it is, still dirty.
> 
> My Spanish is very rusty, so please give me corrections if needed!

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked for a long one-shot but this has gotten away from me so much that I'm afraid it's going to be a multi-chapter story instead! Probably three chapters, possibly four (?).  
> "Llavin" is of course fictional; for anyone who knows the area, I'm expanding the Alpujarras a bit to fit another town in between Lanjarón and Orgiva.


End file.
